The field, the museum and the lecture hall: the spaces of natural history in Victorian Cornwall

This paper contributes to our understandings of the geographies of science through an analysis of nineteenth–century natural history and, in particular, of the provincial natural history society. Focusing on nineteenth–century Cornwall and one of the main natural history societies operating in the county at that time – the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society – it is argued that a set of key spaces were integral to the operations and outputs of such societies. The paper details the significance of the Penzance Society's museum, field sites and lecture hall as sites for communal work of local natural historians. They were also important, it is argued, in their construction of West Cornwall as a site of national natural scientific importance. Lastly, these spaces defined an agenda for regional scientific study. In particular, they promoted a taxonomic method that would transform local people into rigorous scientists and the local region into a 'book of nature'.     

Book reviews

In the context of a shift away from municipal multiculturalism towards community cohesion, and in the light of renewed debates around difference, national identity and Britishness, this article sets out a geographically informed theoretical framework which focuses upon the spatial (re)construction of racial and ethnic identities. The article develops the idea of the everyday as a way of viewing the spatially contingent, complex and negotiated state of inter-ethnic relations in a specific UK city. Not only does this reveal the manner in which strong and stubborn boundaries between social groups are entrenched through the (re)enforcement of spatialised relations of power, but also how accommodations across, between and within difference are realised. Through the employment of empirical material from Leicester, England, the article contends that everyday solidarities emerge from a number of intersecting spatial influences which do not equate to abstract or fixed versions of national belonging.     

Book reviews

This paper focuses on cultural reproduction in arts festival settings. It begins by conceptualizing festival settings as places whose characters derive from a combination of both internally derived traits and a diverse series of interactions with other places. Drawing on case study research conducted in an arts festival setting in Galway in the Republic of Ireland, the discussion identifies how elements indigenous to the place connect and engage with external forces. The study found the process of interacting with other places to be complex, involving much negotiation and adaptation as locales became contexts for re-working an array of often conflicting ideals and influences. The paper concludes that while inevitable difficulties are faced as festivals negotiate the potentially standardizing forces of homogenization, it is only through continuous interaction with other places that local contexts realize their full potential.     

Boekbesprekings/Book reviews

Abstract

The departure point of this article is the postmodern critique of my book, The Dead Will Arise. The object of the article is not however to defend either the book itself or the 'constructionist’ school of historiography to which it apparently belongs. The first part of the article seeks to clarify the epistemological basis on which constructionist historians claim the right to engage with and interpret the past. In the process of doing so, it establishes a conceptual framework capable of defining relevance in the context of post-democratic South African historiography. It argues that historians have a duty to prioritise the ‘scars’ and ‘pitfalls’ of South African history failing which they become mere lapdogs, decorative but irrelevant. It is further argued that, although historians have the right to study whatever they choose, there is something intrinsically wrong with institutional mechanisms which produce nothing but lapdogs, and that university history departments need to take more of a lead.     

The Unhelpful Notion of ‘Renaissance man’

The current journalistic use of the term ‘Renaissance man’ to describe someone whose work straddles boundaries between today's specialisms is a hindrance to understanding almost any aspect of the culture of the Renaissance — a culture within which both ‘art’ and ‘science’ had meanings different from those they have now, the most significant intellectual division being between the learned and the practical traditions. We look first at the learned tradition of the universities (where teaching was in Latin). The people considered include William Harvey, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, Regiomontanus and (very briefly) Isaac Newton. Within the practical tradition, centred on workshops, we consider the state shipyards in Venice (where Galileo claimed to have learned much), workshop practices in general and the emergence of the notion of ‘Fine Arts’. The individuals considered include Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti and Raphael, as well as the famous clockmaker Jost Bürgi (who taught Kepler about algebra). We conclude by considering the transfer of skills between these two traditions. There are several areas of overlap, but here we concentrate attention on the story of algebra. Algebra was invented by al-Khwarizmi (whose name gives us the term ‘algorithm’) in the ninth century, within learned mathematics, in Baghdad. In the West, elementary algebra, derived from al-Khwarizmi's work but in the simplified form of problems, became part of ‘practical mathematics’. Slowly, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, developed forms of algebra crossed over into the learned tradition. This is as much a matter of crossing social barriers as of crossing intellectual ones. Eventually, the practical tradition as a whole became absorbed as an elementary part of the learned one.     

中国对瑞典国最早的全面记述——述清末写本《瑞典国记略》之历史由来

本文从中国对瑞典认识和记述的历史这一角度,介绍并论述了作者收藏的孤本书籍《瑞典国记略》。文章指出,迄至清朝末年,中国对瑞典的认识经历了如下六个阶段:第一阶段,从明末到清代康熙中期。通过西洋传教士的介绍,对瑞典开始有初步的了解。第二阶段,从康熙晚期到道光初年。主要是清朝官方和个别出洋商人,通过出使他国偶然接触到的瑞典国民并向所在国探问相关情况;或是与瑞典来华商船的直接接触;或是海外经商听闻的间接传说,对瑞典有了中国人自己的记述。第三阶段,道光二十年鸦片战争爆发前短暂的若千年期间。西洋传教士开始重新向中国介绍包括瑞典国在内的世界地理知识。第四阶段,从鸦片战争之后到同治四年。在中国人自己撰述的全球地理总志中,对瑞典有了更为丰富和清晰的记述。第五阶段,从同治六年到光绪中期。留下了一批中国人考察游历瑞典的日记,对瑞典的认识变得非常具体明晰,但还很不系统。第六阶段,光绪中期至清王朝结束。《瑞典国记略》就是这一时期的标志性著述,它是中国对瑞典最早的全面系统的记述。这部书虽然没有在社会上正式刊布,但在中国认识瑞典的历史上,仍具有里程碑式意义。     

泽惠史林之作--评《中国科学技术史·度量衡卷》

《中国科学技术史·度量衡卷》是迄今为止最权威的中国度量衡史著作。该书以历代单位量值的演变作为主线 ,旁及中国度量衡的产生、发展、管理制度、相关的科学技术成就等 ,对中国度量衡史做了系统、全面的研究。该书修正了传统研究的不足 ,补充了以往的空缺 ,对相关历史现象的研究也提出了新的见解。该书的出版 ,为史学研究提供了可资借鉴的权威度量衡史著作。     

Book reviews

Drawing on methodologies and theories used to understand forms of material culture, this paper traces the spatio-temporal lives of a group of medicine chests manufactured by Burroughs Wellcome and Co., the business co-founded by Henry Wellcome which is now known as GlaxoSmithKline. The paper examines the biographical, historical and commercial histories connected with these objects. In particular, it considers how the chests became embroiled within narratives of progress and modernity associated with the production and promotion of ‘modern’ pharmaceuticals and the establishment of a collection of objects through which Wellcome attempted to trace the ‘history of medicine and mankind’ from evolutionary perspectives. Using empirical research from a variety of contexts, the paper therefore reflects on how the chests’ circulation, use and display shed light on historical geographies of science, collecting, commerce and empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Le parcours des pharmacies portatives à travers le monde: esquisse sur les géographies de la cueillette et des produits pharmaceutiques

En s'appuyant sur des méthodologies et des théories qui servent à comprendre les formes de culture matérielle, cet article esquisse les vies spatiales et temporelles d'un ensemble de pharmacies portatives fabriquées par l'entreprise Burroughs Wellcome et cie, cofondée par Henry Wellcome et qui est connue aujourd'hui sous le nom de GlaxoSmithKline. Cet article aborde sous les angles biographique, historique et commercial les histoires associées à ces objet. Il se penche en particulier sur la façon dont les pharmacies se sont mêlées aux récits sur le progrès et la modernité liés à la production et la promotion de produits pharmaceutiques «modernes» et à la constitution d'une collection d'objets à partir desquels Wellcome a tenté d'esquisser dans une optique évolutive une «histoire de la médecine et de l'humanité». [Agrave] partir de recherches empiriques issues d'un large éventail de contextes, cet article examine donc comment la diffusion, l'usage et la présentation des pharmacies peuvent donner des renseignements sur les géographies historiques de la science, de la cueillette, du commerce et de l'empire à la fin du dix-neuvième et au début du vingtième siècle.

Mots-clefs: géographies historiques de la culture matérielle, cueillette, commerce, empire, histoires de la science, de la médecine et des produits pharmaceutiques, biographie.

Botiquines de medicina trotamundos: análisis de las geografías de coleccionar y farmacéuticos

Haciendo uso de metodologías y teorías que se emplea para entender formas de cultura material, este papel detalla las vidas espacio-temporales de un grupo de botiquines de medicina, fabricados por Burroughs Wellcome and Co., una empresa cofundada por Henry Wellcome, que hoy en día es conocida como GlaxoSmithKline. El papel examina las historias biográficas, históricas y comerciales relacionadas con estos objetos. En particular, considera cómo los botiquines llegaron a verse envueltos en narrativas de progreso y modernidad, asociadas con la producción y promoción de farmacéuticos modernos y el establecimiento de una colección de objetos, por los cuales Wellcome pretendía detallar la ‘historia de la medicina y del hombre’ desde perspectivas evolucionarias. Haciendo uso de investigaciones empíricas de varios contextos, el papel considera cómo la circulación, el uso y la exposición de los botiquines revela las geografías históricas de ciencia, coleccionar, comercio e imperios en la última parte del siglo 19 y la primera parte del siglo 20.

Palabras claves: geografías históricas de la cultura material, coleccionar, comercio, imperio, Historias de ciencia, medicina y farmacéuticos, biografía.     

Book reviews

Ruth Oldenziel, Making Technology Masculine: Men, Women, and Modern Machines in America, 1870–1945 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999), pp. 271

Lars Engwall and Vera Zamagni (eds.), Management Education in Historical Perspective (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1999), pp. Xiii+177

T.R. Gourvish and N. Tiratsoo (eds.), Missionaries and Managers: American Influences on European Management Education, 1945–1960 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press/St. Martins, 1999), pp. X+165     

Book reviews

New works in geography

Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism. Gregory A. Barton. Pp. xiii + 192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0 521 81417 0 (hbk).

Claiming Rural Identities: Dynamics, Contexts, Policies. Tialda Haartsen, Peter Groote &; Paulus P.P. Huigen (eds). Pp. viii + 166. Assen: Van Gorcum, 2000. Price €17.02, ISBN 90 232 3567 3 (pbk).

Geographies of Health. Anthony C. Gatrell. Pp. xv + 294. Oxford: Blackwell. 2002. Price £16.99 (pbk), ISBN 0 631 21985 4 (pbk).

The Peopling of Britain: The Shaping of the Human Landscape. Paul Slack and Ryk Ward (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002. Price £50.00 (hbk), ISBN 0 19 829759 9 (hbk).

Focus on Scotland

William Speirs Bruce: Polar Explorer and Scottish Nationalist. Peter Speak. Pp. 144. Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland Publishing, 2003. Price £9.99 (pbk), ISBN 1 901663 71 X (pbk).     

Book reviews

D. J. Shepherd: Funerary Ritual and Symbolism. An Interdisciplinary Interpretation of Burial Practices in Late Iron Age Finland. BAR International Series 808. Oxford. 1999. ISBN 1 84171 113 6. 133 pages, 19 maps.

Vladimir N. Bulatov, Russkij Sever, Vols. 1–3. Archangel 1997–99. Izdatel'stvo Pomorskogo Universiteta. 352+352+336 pages.     

Book reviews

Abstract

This paper explores the decision-making process for heritage management at the monastic community of Mount Athos, a World Heritage Site in Northern Greece, in relation to the concept of living religious heritage and the pursuit to balance the heritage values of both the experts (heritage professionals) and the non-experts. The function and impact of a specific heritage agency — KEDAK (Centre for the Preservation of Athonite Heritage) — designed to establish the decision-making power of the Athonite monasteries will be critically discussed. A range of interesting compromising solutions and some challenges and problems raised by the function of this agency will serve as the background for examining the extent to which different perceptions on heritage management can coexist, particularly when heritage professionals find themselves on the bottom of a top-down decision-making process.     

Book reviews

Abstract

This paper explores not just a framework for the protection of cultural heritage relating to a certain place, but also its use as a tool for the enhancement and survival of an identity, based on tradition, common history, and respect for the surrounding environment and identities. The aim is to secure the communities' identities within a common economic framework based on the sustainable development of tourism.

After considering the social complexity of interpreting Spanish twentieth-century history (especially the Civil War and dictatorship), the paper considers the management and interpretation of a Civil War complex at Villargord o del Cabriel, in the Valencia region, which includes the concerns and desires for both resource conservation and economic development. It is proposed that this can be achieved by short-term strategies for community involvement, combined with long-term concerns for conservation of the architecture and the environment, educational and interpretive strategies for the park and surrounding landscape, monitoring, and review, and sustainable tourism in the area.     

Book reviews

Mobile phones have invited a number of dystopian understandings, particularly as far as young people are concerned. They have been variously argued to contribute to poor spelling and grammar, disturb attention to school work, facilitate text bullying, lead to brain cancers and promote the destruction of face-to-face relationships. Despite these concerns, text messaging is by far the most common form of mobile communication between young people in New Zealand. Drawing on actor-network theory and qualitative research conducted with New Zealand teenagers, we explore how teenagers, cell phones, socio-spatial relations and discourses exist within a hybrid and interdependent network which we have termed digital sociality. This network seems to facilitate rather than destroy proximal contact. The machine and the human, in a cyborgian sense, meld to develop new and complex workings of space and the social which suggests mobile technologies are not as damaging to young people as many have suggested and calls for preventative approaches to this technology might need therefore to be rethought.     

Book reviews

RODERICK STACKELBERG. Idealism Debased: From Völkisch Ideology to National Socialism. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1981. Pp. XIII, 202, 3 plates. $18 (US). Reviewed by Lawrence D. Stokes

JEROME CH'EN. China and the West: Society and Culture 1815–1937. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. Pp. 488. $25.90 (Can.) Reviewed by David P. Barrett

FREDERICK W. MARKS ill. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1979. Pp. xiv, 247. $15.00 (US). Reviewed by Raymond A. Esthus

CRAIG L. SYMONDS. Navalists and Antinavalists: The Naval Policy Debate in the United States, 1785–1827. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1980. Pp. 252. $17.50 (US). Reviewed by Reginald C. Stuart

BERNARD RANSOM, Connolly's Marxism, London: Pluto, 1980. Pp. 126. Reviewed by Desmond Bowen

THOMAS A. BAILEY and PAUL B. RYAN, Hitler vs. Roosevelt: The Undeclared War. London: Collier Macmillan, 1979. Pp. 302. £7.45. Reviewed by Ronald W. Pruessen

M.A. HICKS, False, Fleeting, Perjur'd Clarence; George, Duke of Clarence, 1449–1478. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, and Atlantic Highlands, NJ. Humanities Press, 1980. Pp. 270. $22.00 (US). Reviewed by Robert Tittler

MURIEL ATKIN, Russia and Iran, 1780–1828. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980. Pp. xii, 216. $20 (US). Reviewed by M.E. Yapp

J.K. FEDOROWICZ. England's Baltic Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century: A Study in Anglo-Polish Commerical Diplomacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Pp. XIII, 334. $35 (US). Reviewed by David S. Macmillan

MICHAEL CROWDER. Colonial West Africa: Collected Essays. London: Frank Cass, 1978. Pp. 341. $28.50 (US). Reviewed by John Flint

PETER GRAF KIELMANSEGG. Deutschland und der erste Weltkrieg. 2. Auflage. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980. Pp. XI, 755. Reviewed by Henry Cord Meyer

PIOTR S. WANDYCZ. The United States and Poland. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pp. XVI, 465. $28.50 (US). Reviewed by Stanislaw Bobr-Tylingo

FREDERICK COOPER. From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Colonial Kenya, 1890–7925. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. Pp. xi, 328. $25 (US). Reviewed by Mike Mason

DONALD E. QUELLER. Medieval Diplomacy and the Fourth Crusade. London: Variorum Reprints, 1980. Pp. 322. £22. Reviewed by Bernice M. Kacznski

CHRISTINE MOSS HELMS. The Cohesion of Saudi Arabia: Evolution of Political Identity. London: Croom Helm, &; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981. Pp. 313. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by Ray L. Cleveland

CHRISTOPHER H.D. HOWARD, editor. The Diary of Edward Goschen, 1900–1914. London: Royal Historical Society (Camden Fourth Series, Vol. 25), 1980. Pp. xn, 315. £10. Reviewed by Briton C. Busch     

Book reviews

James E. McClellen III and Harold Dorn. Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Press, 1999.404 pages + illustrations + maps + graphs + bibliography + index. $55.00 (hardcover), $18.95 (paperback).

Arnold Pacey. Meaning in Technology (Cambridge, Mass and London, England: MIT Press, 1999), pp. viii+264.     

The coming of age of the history of archaeology

Publications and organizational developments relating to the history of archaeology from 1989 until June 1993 are critically examined. Attention is paid to the changing motivations for producing such publications, their shifting intellectual orientation, controversies, especially as they relate to internal vs external approaches and the epistemological status of explanations, problems of verification, and the status of these studies as a subfield within archaeology.