Encyclopaedic visions
Subtitle: scientific dictionaries and enlightenment culture
By: Richard Yeo.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 336
Subjects: Encyclopedias and dictionaries -- History and criticism; Science -- Encyclopedias -- Early works to 1800; Science -- History -- Encyclopedias -- History and criticism; Science -- History -- 18th century; Science and civilization -- Early works to 1800; Learning and scholarship -- History -- 18th century; Enlightenment -- England; England -- Intellectual life -- 18th century
Genres: Encyclopedias; Early works to 1800.
Description: "The eighteenth-century English dictionaries of arts and sciences claimed to contain all knowledge that a person of education should possess. These early encyclopaedias responded to the explosion of information by reducing knowledge to essentials, stressing the need for a coherent account of the sciences, and for some time excluding biography and history. Richard Yeo places these scientific dictionaries in a rich cultural framework of debate that includes the classification of knowledge, the tradition of commonplaces, the Republic of Letters, the Enlightenment public sphere, copyright issues and the specialisation of science. He discusses dilemmas involved in the quest for knowledge to be both organised and readily available, examining assumptions about the organisation, communication and control of knowledge in these works. Elegantly illustrated and accessibly written, Encyclopaedic Visions provides a major contribution to Enlightenment studies, the history of science and the history of ideas in general."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 284-322) and index.