Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science

by Jim Endersby

Overview

Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911) was an internationally renowned botanist, a close friend and early supporter of Charles Darwin, and one of the first—and most successful—British men of science to become a full-time professional. He was also, Jim Endersby argues, the perfect embodiment of Victorian science. A vivid picture of the complex interrelationships of scientific work and scientific ideas, Imperial Nature gracefully uses one individual’s career to illustrate the changing world of science in the Victorian era.
By analyzing Hooker’s career, Endersby offers vivid insights into the everyday activities of nineteenth-century naturalists, considering matters as diverse as botanical illustration and microscopy, classification, and specimen transportation and storage, to reveal what they actually did, how they earned a living, and what drove their scientific theories. What emerges is a rare glimpse of Victorian scientific practices in action. By focusing on science’s material practices and one of its foremost practitioners, Endersby ably links concerns about empire, professionalism, and philosophical practices to the forging of a nineteenth-century scientific identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226207919
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	05/15/2008
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jim Endersby is professor of the history of science at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Orchid: A Cultural History, Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science, and A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
     Acknowledgements

     Introduction

1.  Traveling

2.  Collecting

3.  Corresponding

4.  Seeing

5.  Classifying

6.  Settling

7.  Publishing

8.  Charting

9.  Associating

10. Governing

     Conclusion

     Notes
     Bibliography
     Index

Editorial Reviews

"One of the most satisfying performances of the last few years has got to be Jim Endersby’s remarkable new study of the practices and institutions of Victorian botany. . . . Endersby’s work is much more than mere biography. It greatly expands our notion of what it is to be science, to be imperial and to enroll nature in the modern period."

British Journal for the History of Science - Gordon McOuat

"Endersby has done a wonderful job of thinking out and executing his charge, in good part through the aid of examples provided by personal letters that passed among the principal figures involved, and an extraordinary attention to setting out immediate contexts. These and his easy writing style give perfect shape to his main emphases: the influence of Darwinism on botanical science during this period, the characteristics of its professionalization, and the effects on its process and progress that the English colonial empire generated."

Archives of Natural History - Charles H. Smith

"A refreshing record of how scientists worked....[Endersby's] contention, with which I agree, is that the practice of science provides the context necessary for understanding how theories advanced; without this background, scientific progress looks too simple, and leaps seem extraordinary."

Nature - Sandra Knapp

"Endersby has written a remarkable, deeply researched, multidimensional study of Joseph Dalton Hooker and Victorian botanical science. . . . With this book Endersby has established himself as a strong voice among historians of Victorian science. His views will invite controversy while at the same time requiring other historians of the culture and practice of Victorian science to reconsider many of their existing presupposiitons. This is a book to be read and pondered."

Victorian Studies - Frank M. Turner

"This biography shows how science in the 19th century transformed from the activites of independently wealthy men to those of professionals paid by governments....Highly recommended."

Choice

"The book fills an important gap in the history of our subject, so deserves to find its way into the library of every institution where botany is taught."

Annals of Botany - Peter Ayres

Endersby has written a remarkable, deeply researched, multidimensional study of Joseph Dalton Hooker and Victorian botanical science. . . . With this book Endersby has established himself as a strong voice among historians of Victorian science. His views will invite controversy while at the same time requiring other historians of the culture and practice of Victorian science to reconsider many of their existing presupposiitons. This is a book to be read and pondered.

— Frank M. Turner

Victorian Studies

One of the most satisfying performances of the last few years has got to be Jim Endersby’s remarkable new study of the practices and institutions of Victorian botany. . . . Endersby’s work is much more than mere biography. It greatly expands our notion of what it is to be science, to be imperial and to enroll nature in the modern period.

— Gordon McOuat

British Journal for the History of Science

Endersby has done a wonderful job of thinking out and executing his charge, in good part through the aid of examples provided by personal letters that passed among the principal figures involved, and an extraordinary attention to setting out immediate contexts. These and his easy writing style give perfect shape to his main emphases: the influence of Darwinism on botanical science during this period, the characteristics of its professionalization, and the effects on its process and progress that the English colonial empire generated.

— Charles H. Smith

Archives of Natural History

The book fills an important gap in the history of our subject, so deserves to find its way into the library of every institution where botany is taught.

— Peter Ayres

Annals of Botany

A refreshing record of how scientists worked....[Endersby's] contention, with which I agree, is that the practice of science provides the context necessary for understanding how theories advanced; without this background, scientific progress looks too simple, and leaps seem extraordinary.

— Sandra Knapp

Nature