Through the personal narratives those who have struggled over the past five centuries and more to comprehend and to document the natural world, the progress of natural history from speculative pursuit to systematic science is here explored, contextualized and illustrated.
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Through the personal narratives those who have struggled over the past five centuries and more to comprehend and to document the natural world, the progress of natural history from speculative pursuit to systematic science is here explored, contextualized and illustrated.
Read Less
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Seller's Description:
Very Good. Hardcover. No dust jacket. Shelf wear/bumping to corners. Good binding and cover. Clean, unmarked pages. XXXIX-999 p. : ill.; 25 cm. With a Foreword by Sir David Attenborough. Interposed between the natural world in all its diversity and the edited form in which we encounter it in literature, imagery and the museum, lie the multiple practices of the naturalists in selecting, recording and preserving the specimens from which our world view is to be reconstituted. The factors that weigh at every stage are here dissected, analysed and set within a historical narrative that spans more than five centuries. During that era, every aspect evolved and changed, as engagement with nature moved from a speculative pursuit heavily influenced by classical scholarship to a systematic science, drawing on advanced theory and technology. Far from being neutrally objective, the process of representing nature is shown as fraught with constraint and compromise.
