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At once a major resource for historians of science and an excellent introduction to natural history for the general reader, David Allen's The Naturalist in Britain established a precedent for investigating natural history as a social phenomenon. Here the author traces the evolution of natural history from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries, from the "herbalizings" of apprentice apothecaries to the establishment of national reserves and international societies to the emergence of natural history as an organized discipline. Along the way he describes the role of scientific ideas, popular fashion, religious motivations, literary influences, the increase of leisure time and disposable income, and the tendency of like-minded persons to form clubs. His comprehensive and entertaining discussion creates a vibrant portrait of a scientific movement inextricably woven into a particular culture.
"Though met with mixed responses from scientists and naturalists across the centuries, believing the world around them was to be purely 'known' and not read, books on natural history have also come to incite passion and excitement in so many of their readers, and illustrations as much as text have helped to propel this. To have the world around us neatly categorized and named has, to an extent, made it a less daunting place in which to live. In the latest book from the highly acclaimed New Naturalist series, Dr. David Allen explores the world of nature publishing through the course of history, from its very early days in the dawn of publishing, through various significant new discoveries and into the birth of the New Naturalist series itself, highlighting the extraordinary personal stories behind many seminal works."--Publisher's description.
Firsthand accounts of the medicinal uses of more than 400 species as told by the plain folk of Britain and Ireland. Rich in lore and practical wisdom of the ages.
The author's aim in these essays, which complement his pioneering books on natural history, has been to find out more about the different categories of people who engaged in this field in the past, and to piece together how the subject has been shaped by changes in society as a whole. For long the historical study of natural history was neglected, being questionably science as historians of science chose to define that word; David Allen's work has done much to remedy this. One group of the essays included here seeks to reinterpret and document more fully topics covered in The Naturalist in Britain; others look at crazes that swept society, notably the Victorian mania for fern collecting, and at the biographies of some of the leading naturalists in 18th- and 19th-century Britain.
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At once a major resource for historians of science and an excellent introduction to natural history for the general reader, David Allen's The Naturalist in Britain established a precedent for investigating natural history as a social phenomenon. Here the author traces the evolution of natural history from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries, from the "herbalizings" of apprentice apothecaries to the establishment of national reserves and international societies to the emergence of natural history as an organized discipline. Along the way he describes the role of scientific ideas, popular fashion, religious motivations, literary influences, the increase of leisure time and disposable income, and the tendency of like-minded persons to form clubs. His comprehensive and entertaining discussion creates a vibrant portrait of a scientific movement inextricably woven into a particular culture.
The evolution of beekeeping can be traced in the changing shape of the beehive and in the various structures used to house and protect it. These range from simple recesses holding one or two straw hives in house or garden walls to large free-standing buildings which could hold up to 32 hives. The wide variety of forms reflects the wealth, occupation and idiosyncrasies of owners, the increasing knowledge of the life cycle and requirements of the honey bee and the economic climate of the day. With developments in beekeeping techniques in the nineteenth century these structures fell into disuse. Today they are often unrecognized and many are derelict or have disappeared altogether. It is hoped that this book will introduce to a wider public the various and fascinating ways in which bees were housed and will encourage the recording and preservation of those examples still to be found.
Fern Fever (or Pteridomania, to give it its official name), hit Britain between 1837 and 1914 and peaked between 1840 and 1890. Although in previous centuries ferns played an important role in customs and folklore, it was only in this period that they were coveted for aesthetic reasons and that man's passion for them reached its zenith. The craze for collecting ferns reached such epidemic proportions that it affected the very existence of some species. The fern craze started to gather momentum in the 1840s; books and magazines maintained that fern growing was a hobby that anyone could enjoy as ferns would grow in the glazed fernery, garden, shady yard, window box or even indoors in Wardian Cases. The mania also spread from the living plant to depicting it in architecture and the decorative arts. Even roads, villas and terraced houses were named after the fern. This book, the first to deal exclusively with the subject for nearly forty years, looks at the how the craze developed, the ways in which ferns were incorporated into garden and home, and the spread of the fern through Victorian material and visual culture.