The decades between the French Revolution and the mid-nineteenth century were a period of radical transformation in Scottish society and culture on many levels. The Scottish Enlightenment had seen a striking blossoming of the natural sciences, with the development of a distinctive and influential national scientific culture.
The natural philosopher David Brewster was educated in Edinburgh amidst the intellectual ferment of the late Enlightenment but lived to end his days as a grand old man of Victorian science. This book uses the long and eventful career of Brewster as a lens through which to explore themes of rupture and continuity in Scottish scientific culture in a period of dramatic social and political change.
Arvustused
Bill Jenkins deft portrait of David Brewsters multifaceted scientific career illuminates a long-neglected period in the history of Scottish science. No other book tells us as much about the intersections of Evangelicalism, Whig politics, patronage and the cultivation of natural knowledge in post-Enlightenment Scotland as this one. -- Paul Wood, University of Victoria Carefully researched and well written, Jenkins pieces together facets of patronage that were so important to scientific progress in the early 19th century and explores the influence of politics and religion, often neglected in histories of the. period. This history is a valuable addition to understanding 19th century science and Scotland. -- J. J. Butt, emeritus, James Madison University * CHOICE *
Chapter
1. Introduction
PART I: SCIENCE IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY SCOTLAND
Chapter
2. Politics and patronage: Science in an age of revolution, reaction
and reform
Chapter
3. Science and religion between Enlightenment and Disruption
Chapter
4. The philosophy of science
PART II: BUILDING A LIFE IN SCOTTISH SCIENCE
Chapter
5. Scientific book and periodical publishing in Scotland
Chapter
6. Scientific societies and associations
Chapter
7. Scientific education in Scotland: Natural philosophy and the
democratic intellect
Chapter
8. Conclusion
Bibliography
Archival sources
Online sources
Published primary sources
Secondary sources
Dr Bill Jenkins is a lecturer in the School of History at the University of St Andrews, working on a project funded by the Leverhulme Trust entitled After the Enlightenment: Scottish Intellectual Life, c.1790-c.1843. Jenkins received his PhD at the University of Edinburgh has published several papers in key journals, including the Journal of the History of Biology, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies and British Journal for the History of Science. He is the author of Evolution Before Darwin: Theories of the Transmutation of Species in Edinburgh, 18041834 (EUP, 2019).
