USD $136.00
Fish on Paper: Ichthyology and the Disciplining of Natural History (1680–1820)
Series: - Emergence of Natural History, Volume: 10
Author:
This book offers the first contextualised approach to how the study of fish took shape as a distinct field of knowledge in the eighteenth century. This field was called ichthyology. In placing the many and varied contributors to early modern natural history into this historical narrative, this volume demonstrates how the world underwater was a shared site of investigation. Through analysing the practices that were central to natural history, it shows how the development of a classificatory method resulted in a disciplining of natural history that established the ichthyologist as the authoritative knower of fish. Drawing on unique, previously unexplored material from libraries, archives, and museums, this study examines how this emphasis on classification directed the ways in which fish were preserved as specimens, in texts and in images. The epilogue reflects on how these historical sources shed light on the past occurrence of species and how this can inform ecological research.
Didi van Trijp, Ph.D. (2021), Leiden University, is an historian of science and curator. Her research focuses on the history of collecting and the material and visual culture of science, particularly of natural history, in the early modern period.
This book caters to historians of science, book historians, as well as art historians. It is also suited for biologists and ecologists who take a historical interest.