French Botany in the Enlightenment
Subtitle: The Ill-fated Voyages of La Pérouse and his Rescuers (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées)
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: Springer
Published: March 31, 2003
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9781402011092
Subjects: Botany & plant sciences; History of ideas, intellectual history; c 1600 to c 1700; c 1700 to c 1800; History; Botanists; Science; Plant collectors; Science/Mathematics; Life Sciences - Taxonomy; History & Theory - General; Anthropology - General; Life Sciences - Botany; Social Science / Reference; Anthropology - Cultural; 18th century; Botany; France
First sentence: The title of this book is meant to signal at the outset its confines, both its inclusions and what is beyond its scope.
Description: "This volume completes a trilogy meant to be a commentary on the botanophilia that captured the literate public in 18th-century France. Enthusiastic public support for any governmental initiative likely to expand botanical knowledge was an expression of immense curiosity about the natural world beyond Europe, which extended into a curiosity about primitive people and cultures little known. It amounted to a quest for universal knowledge that could benefit all mankind: useful knowledge that could improve the human condition in this life. That was the spirit of the Enlightenment, the sciences believed to be the key to humanity's advancement. The botanists exploring abroad brought back exciting quantities of new species and genera, but also a message about the condition of primitive people that undercut the fashionable image of noble savagery. No matter how dispiriting were some of the conditions they observed abroad, they retained a faith that ignorance and superstition could be vanquished."--Back of dust jacket.