Overview
- Maximizes reader insights into the life of Robert Brown and Mungo Park from the perspective of the Scottish Enlightenment
- Enhanced by the accessibility of Brown’s diary, and added annotated information
- Incorporates material from Sir Joseph Banks's correspondence with Brown, Park, and other principal figures
Part of the book series: Memoirs of The New York Botanical Garden (MNYBG, volume 122)
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About this book
Explorer-naturalists Robert Brown and Mungo Park played a pivotal role in the development of natural history and exploration in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This work is a fresh examination of the lives and careers of Brown and Park and their impact on natural history and exploration. Brown and Park were part of a group of intrepid naturalists who brought back some of the flora and fauna they encountered, drawings of what they observed, and most importantly, their ideas. The educated public back home was able to gain an understanding of the diversity in nature. This eventually led to the development of new ways of regarding the natural world and the eventual development of a coherent theory of organic evolution.
This book considers these naturalists, Brown, Park, and their contemporaries, from the perspective of the Scottish Enlightenment. Brown’s investigations in natural history created a fertile environment for breakthroughs in taxonomy, cytology, and eventually evolution. Brown’s pioneering work in plant taxonomy allowed biologists to look at the animal and plant kingdoms differently. Park’s adventures stimulated significant discoveries in exploration. Brown and Park’s adventures formed a bridge to such journeys as Charles Darwin’s voyage on H.M.S. Beagle, which led to a revolution in biology and full explication of the theory of evolution.
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Keywords
Table of contents (13 chapters)
Reviews
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
College of Staten Island of the City University of New York
Swampscott, Massachusetts 01907-1314
United States of America
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Robert Brown and Mungo Park
Book Subtitle: Travels and Explorations in Natural History for the Royal Society
Authors: Joel Schwartz
Series Title: Memoirs of The New York Botanical Garden
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74859-3
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life Sciences, Biomedical and Life Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-74858-6Published: 05 August 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-74861-6Published: 29 December 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-74859-3Published: 04 August 2021
Series ISSN: 0077-8931
Series E-ISSN: 2662-2858
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIX, 217
Number of Illustrations: 7 b/w illustrations, 32 illustrations in colour
Topics: Plant Sciences