The platypus and the mermaid, and other figments of the classifying imagination
By: Harriet Ritvo.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
Subjects: Zoology -- Great Britain -- Classification -- History -- 18th century; Zoology -- Great Britain -- Classification -- History -- 19th century; Natural history -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century; Natural history -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century; Popular culture -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century; Popular culture -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
Description: This book captures the fervor of the Victorian age for classifying and categorizing every new specimen, plant or animal, that British explorers and soldiers and sailors brought home. As she depicts a whole complex of competing groups deploying rival schemes and nomenclatures, Harriet Ritvo shows us a society drawing and redrawing its own boundaries and ultimately identifying itself. A thoroughly absorbing account of taxonomy - as zoological classification and as anthropological study - The Platypus and the Mermaid offers a new perspective on the constantly shifting, ever suggestive interactions of scientific lore, cultural ideas, and the popular imagination.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [215]-272) and index.