1800
A01=E. C. Spary
academic
agriculture
animals
Author_E. C. Spary
botanical
breeding
Category=NHD
Category=NHTB
collections
education
enlightenment
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
europe
european
france
french
garden
historical
history
jacobins
jardin
museum
natural
nature
outdoors
political
politics
regime
research
revolution
rhetoric
royal
royalty
ruler
scholarly
scientist
utopian
western
Product details
- ISBN 9780226768632
- Weight: 539g
- Dimensions: 17 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 15 Dec 2000
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
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.
