In recent years, historians of science have increasingly turned their attention to the “print culture” of early modern science. These studies have revealed that printing, as both a technology and a social and economic system, structured the forms and meanings of natural knowledge. Yet in early modern Europe, naturalists, including John Aubrey, John Evelyn, and John Ray, whose work is discussed in this paper, often shared and read scientific texts in manuscript either before or in lieu of printing. Scribal exchange, (...) exemplified in the circulation of writings like commonplace books, marginalia, manuscript treatises, and correspondence, was the primary means by which communities of naturalists constructed scientific knowledge. Print and manuscript were necessary partners. Manuscript fostered close collaboration, and could be circulated relatively cheaply; but, unlike print, it could not reliably secure priority or survival for posterity. Naturalists approached scribal and print communication strategically, choosing the medium that best suited their goals at any given moment. As a result, print and scribal modes of disseminating information, constructing natural knowledge, and organizing communities developed in tandem. Practices typically associated with print culture manifested themselves in scribal texts and exchanges, and vice versa. “Print culture” cannot be hived off from “scribal culture.” Rather, in their daily jottings and exchanges, naturalists inhabited, and produced, one common culture of communication. (shrink)

(1996). Geography, science and national identity in early modern Britain: The case of Scotland and the work of Sir Robert Sibbald (1641–1722) Annals of Science: Vol. 53, No. 1, pp. 29-73.

Early-modern natural history has frequently been interpreted as a handmaid of natural philosophy. Mary Poovey, for example, has argued that seventeenth-century nuggets of information only became ‘m...

Chorography is a little-known field of theory and practice concerned with the significance of place, regional description/characterization, local history, and representation. A well-established discipline and methodology with demonstrable roots in antiquity and an important role in the development of antiquarian research, regional studies and the establishment of modern archaeology, chorography is useful for understanding the history of scholarship and may continue to provide sound theoretical principles and practical methods for new explorations of archaeological monuments and landscapes. This paper discusses the (...) historical uses of chorography, beginning with practitioners from classical antiquity but emphasizing the uniquely British chorographic tradition of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Attention is also given to more recent efforts at exploring this tradition by literary scholars, historiographers and archaeological theorists. Careful analysis of works of—and about—chorography allows for the explication of key theoretical principles and practical methods, which are presented and elaborated upon. It is argued that chorography offers a coherent, viable and valuable approach to evaluating the long-term significance of landscapes, monuments and regions, crossing conventional disciplinary divides and connecting past and present. The paper concludes with some thoughts on the benefits of chorography for contemporary research and its potential role in modern archaeology. (shrink)