Utopia's Garden
Subtitle: French Natural History from Old Regime to Revolution
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Published: December 1, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9780226768625
Subjects: European history: c 1500 to c 1750; European history: c 1750 to c 1900; NATURAL HISTORY, COUNTRY LIFE & PETS; Social history; Science; History - General History; History: World; Science/Mathematics; Europe; Europe - France; History; Science / History; Eighteenth century; France; Museum national d'histoire na; Musâeum national d'histoire naturelle (France); Natural History
First sentence: The name of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon is scarcely known today.
Description: The royal Parisian botanical garden, the Jardin du Roi, was a jewel in the crown of the French Old Regime, praised by both rulers and scientific practitioners. Yet unlike many such institutions, the Jardin not only survived the French Revolution but by 1800 had become the world's leading public establishment of natural history: the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. E. C. Spary traces the scientific, administrative, and political strategies that enabled the foundation of the Muséum, arguing that agriculture and animal breeding rank alongside classification and collections in explaining why natural history was important for French rulers. But the Muséum's success was also a consequence of its employees' Revolutionary rhetoric: by displaying the natural order, they suggested, the institution could assist in fashioning a self-educating, self-policing Republican people. Natural history was presented as an indispensable source of national prosperity and individual virtue. Spary's fascinating account opens a new chapter in the history of France, science, and the Enlightenment.