Curious species : how animals made natural history / Whitney Barlow Robles.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Robles, Whitney Barlow, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Animals--History--18th century.

Animals.

Natural history--History--18th century.

Natural history.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 301 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New Haven, Connecticut : Yale University Press, [2023]

Summary:

A compelling and innovative exploration of how animals shaped the field of natural history and its ecological afterlives Can corals build worlds? Do rattlesnakes enchant? What is a raccoon, and what might it know? Animals and the questions they raised thwarted human efforts to master nature during the so-called Enlightenment-a historical moment when rigid classification pervaded the study of natural history, people traded in people, and imperial avarice wrapped its tentacles around the globe. Whitney Barlow Robles makes animals the unruly protagonists of eighteenth-century science through journeys to four spaces and ecological zones: the ocean, the underground, the curiosity cabinet, and the field. Her forays reveal a forgotten lineage of empirical inquiry, one that forced researchers to embrace uncertainty. This tumultuous era in the history of human-animal encounters still haunts modern biologists and ecologists as they struggle to fathom animals today. In an eclectic fusion of history and nature writing, Robles alternates between careful historical investigations and probing personal narratives. These excavations of the past and present of distinct nonhuman creatures reveal the animal foundations of human knowledge and show why tackling our current environmental crisis first requires looking back in time.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Preface

Introduction: Animal Matters

Corals

1 A Different Species of Resistance

2 Getting Back

Rattlesnakes

3 The Lost Serpent

4 Secrets

Fish

5 The Flounder and the Ray

6 Splitting the Lark

Raccoons

7 Sleight of Hand

8 Touching the Past

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-290) index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Robles, Whitney Barlow Curious Species

ISBN:

0-300-27486-6

OCLC:

1407315255