Colonial America presented a new world of natural curiosities for settlers as well as the London-based scientific community. In American Curiosity; Susan Scott Parrish examines how various peoples in the British colonies understood and represented the natural world around them from the late sixteenth century through the eighteenth. Parrish shows how scientific knowledge about America; rather than flowing strictly from metropole to colony; emerged from a horizontal exchange of information across the Atlantic.Delving into an understudied archive of letters; Parrish uncovers early descriptions of American natural phenomena as well as clues to how people in the colonies construed their own identities through the natural world. Although hierarchies of gender; class; institutional learning; place of birth or residence; and race persisted within the natural history community; the contributions of any participant were considered valuable as long as they supplied novel data or specimens from the American side of the Atlantic. Thus Anglo-American nonelites; women; Indians; and enslaved Africans all played crucial roles in gathering and relaying new information to Europe. Recognizing a significant tradition of nature writing and representation in North America well before the Transcendentalists; American Curiosity also enlarges our notions of the scientific Enlightenment by looking beyond European centers to find a socially inclusive American base to a true transatlantic expansion of knowledge.
#1054651 in Books The University of North Carolina Press 2003-03-31 2003-03-31Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.25 x .90 x 6.12l; 1.13 #File Name: 0807854409358 pages
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A Good Book Well Worth the TimeBy AJRGUsually writers address the Jim Crow period and give a brief overview of slavery. This is a very good book that goes into race relations in Virginia from 1790 to the Civil War. The first two chapters cover Sally Hemmings and all her relatives and I have never found a book with so clear an explanation of Jefferson and his behavior; or which goes into that much depth about life in Richmond and Charlottesville. The basic system was and still is; you can do what you want in private but not in public which evolved into the grand hypocrisy of southern race relations.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Four StarsBy Mr Steverequired reading for my daughter's class. Interesting1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A Must Read for History LoversBy Gwendolyn L. HesterThis book gives you fresh insight into and information on segments of America's hidden history. It contains a wealth of information on slavery and race relations that evolved over time. Very compelling.
