Article ID: CBB717509066

What It Meant to Be Linnaean in Revolutionary France (2020)

unapi

This essay builds on recent scholarship on Linnaeus to revise our understanding of how and why he became influential in France in the 1790s. It looks in particular at the nontaxonomic writings of Linnaeus (such as the Amoenitates Academicae) and the young men associated with two voluntary societies that emerged in Paris early in the Revolutionary decade—the Société d’Histoire Naturelle and the Société Philomatique—drawing on their minutes as well as the correspondence and other writings of their members. The essay focuses on Alexandre Brongniart (1770–1847), who was an active member of both societies, and the younger men he mentored, including Ernest Coquebert de Montbret (1780–1801) and Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778–1841). It concludes that to be Linnaean in Revolutionary France was not simply to embrace Linnaean taxonomy and nomenclature; rather, it was to practice natural history as a form of citizenship validated by patriotic arguments for its utility to the nation that were based on Linnaeus’s theory of natural and political economy grounded in the land.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB717509066/

Similar Citations

Book Hanna Hodacs; Stéphane Van Damme; Kenneth Nyberg; (2018)
Linnaeus, Natural History and the Circulation of Knowledge (/isis/citation/CBB833759855/)

Chapter Jean-Claude Martzloff; (2015)
Yixing (一行) in Paris (/isis/citation/CBB868044089/)

Article Pearce, Trevor; (2010)
“A Great Complication of Circumstances”---Darwin and the Economy of Nature (/isis/citation/CBB001022379/)

Article Michael Bycroft; (2018)
Regulation and Intellectual Change at the Paris Goldsmiths’ Guild, 1660-1740 (/isis/citation/CBB536056051/)

Article Darnton, Robert; (2000)
An early information society: News and the media in eighteenth-century Paris (/isis/citation/CBB000111567/)

Article Aicardi, Christine; (2009)
The Analytic Spirit and the Paris Institution for the Deaf-Mutes, 1760--1830 (/isis/citation/CBB000931551/)

Article Duval, Jessie; Callou, Cécile; Horard-Herbin, Marie-Pierre; (2011)
Le castor Castor fiber Linnaeus, 1758 en France. Étude archéozoologique (/isis/citation/CBB001201449/)

Book Robbins, Louise E.; (2002)
Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century Paris (/isis/citation/CBB000201531/)

Book Wallis, Peter; Axon, Colin; (2008)
Innovation and Discovery: Bath and the Rise of Science (/isis/citation/CBB001022717/)

Chapter Patrick Bungener; (2011)
Inventaire électronique de la correspondance d'Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) (/isis/citation/CBB403446250/)

Book Hanna Roman; (2018)
The Language of Nature in Buffon's 'Histoire Naturelle' (/isis/citation/CBB527828533/)

Article Bertucci, Paola; Courcelle, Olivier; (2015)
Artisanal Knowledge, Expertise, and Patronage in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris: The Société Des Arts (1728--36) (/isis/citation/CBB001550449/)

Authors & Contributors
Bertucci, Paola
Nyberg, Kenneth
Roman, Hanna
Wallis, Peter
Vannoni, Antonella
Schmitt, Stéphane
Journals
Revue d'Histoire des Sciences
Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza
Journal of the History of Collections
Journal of the History of Biology
Journal of Early Modern History
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Publishers
Voltaire Foundation
V&R Unipress
Springer International
Liverpool University Press
Johns Hopkins University Press
Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques
Concepts
Natural history
Science and society
Societies; institutions; academies
Museums
Classification in biology
Crafts and craftspeople
People
Linnaeus, Carolus
Candolle, Augustin Pyramus de
Klein, Jacob Theodor
Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Antoine Pierre de Monet de
Hunter, John
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc de
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
17th century
20th century
Places
France
Paris (France)
Great Britain
Königsberg
South Asia
Bath (England)
Institutions
Société d'Histoire Naturelle
Société des arts industriels, Paris
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment