Reading the World: British Practices of Natural History, 1760-1820

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—a period that marked the emergence of a global modernity—educated landowners, or “gentlemen,” dominated the development of British natural history, utilizing networks of trade and empire to inventory nature and understand events across the world. Specimens, ranging from a Welsh bittern to the plants of Botany Bay, were collected, recorded, and classified, while books were produced in London and copies distributed and used across Britain, Continenta...