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The Natural History Tradition (Ecology)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. The natural history tradition emerged from ancient philosophy and over time became more scientifically oriented, eventually developing into an increasingly literary and aesthetic mode of engaging with the natural world. Observing, understanding, and representing nature are its scientific and artistic aims. In the ancient world, the study of natural history focused on humans’ material and spiritual relationships to nature and the environment. In recovering classical texts such as Ptolemy’s Geography and Aristotle’s Physics, Renaissance natural historians worked to advance the field through technological and scientific developments. The revival of classical thought was pervasive throughout the Renaissance, and texts that have revolutionized Western natural history rely heavily on these earlier works to frame their arguments. Natural history during the Enlightenment, in both Europe and America, was defined by the impulse to identify and taxonomize species, which resulted in natural history becoming more globally unified in its conventions and practices. Fueled by the novelty of North American plants, animals, and landscapes, early American naturalists utilized European natural history approaches to categorize their findings, yet American natural historians were more engaged with fieldwork than their European counterparts. Fieldwork fueled the growth of global species collection and exchange, as many American naturalists sent species abroad to patrons and scientific societies throughout Europe. Nineteenth-century natural history marked a moment in which the tradition began to shift from religiously driven studies of the natural world to increasingly scientific approaches. Subsequently, natural history further bifurcated into professionalized and amateur scientific study. Developing theories documenting the evolution of species and the process of natural selection emerged in the mid-19th century, further contributing to natural history’s split into specialized scientific study and the more literary, aestheticized genre of nature writing. Additionally, a latent nationalism undergirded many natural history projects during this period, especially among American naturalists responding to Old World paradigms. 20th-century natural history followed the trajectory of literary nature writing by recording observations in local environments, which in turn resulted in an increase in writing concerned with environmental protection and conservation. Throughout the trajectory of this tradition, natural history has focused on observing, ordering, and recording the natural world and the human relationship to it.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
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  7. These texts provide critical introductions to and analyses of the field of natural history and its trajectory over time. Though not comprehensive in its scope, Smallwood 1967 is foundational to the development of the critical analysis of natural history. Jenkins 1978 and Patterson 2007, on the other hand, attempt to provide comprehensive coverage of natural historians and their works. Several of these texts, especially Bown 2002 and Farber 2000, place developments in natural history into historical and cultural contexts. Bates 1990 connects the natural history tradition to other fields of science, while Lyon 2001 links early American natural history with literary nature writing. Although many of these texts identify and analyze well-known figures and concepts in natural history, Edwards and De Wolfe 2001 brings to light the significant, yet often ignored, contributions of women to the field.
  8.  
  9. Bates, Marston. 1990. The nature of natural history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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  11. Defines natural history and explains how it relates to other areas of scientific study. Language and concepts are accessible to nonscientists.
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  13. Bown, Stephen R. 2002. The naturalists: Scientific travelers in the golden age of natural history. New York: Barnes & Noble.
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  15. Focuses on 18th- and 19th-century British and American natural historians, including Alexander von Humboldt, William Bartram, and John Kirk Townsend. Places these naturalists’ work in the context of political, historical, economic, and cultural events to chart a trajectory of the field’s development.
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  17. Edwards, Thomas S., and Elizabeth A. De Wolfe, eds. 2001. Such news of the land: U.S. women nature writers. Hanover, NH: Univ. of New England Press.
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  19. This collection of critical essays examines the contributions of women to the natural history and nature writing traditions. Essays employ literary, historical, and anthropological approaches to consider both specific authors and larger trends in women’s participation in and shaping of natural history writing.
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  21. Farber, Paul Lawrence. 2000. Finding order in nature: The naturalist tradition from Linnaeus to E. O. Wilson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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  23. Traces the development of the natural history tradition from the Enlightenment to the 20th century. Provides historical context for several facets of natural history, including classification systems, the rise of zoos and museums, and the theory of evolution. Geared toward a general reader.
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  25. Jenkins, Alan C. 1978. The naturalists: Pioneers of natural history. New York: Mayflower.
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  27. Using both text and images, this book provides a comprehensive study of natural history in the Western world. Tracks the trajectory of changing attitudes toward the natural world as shaped by naturalists from Aristotle to 20th-century writers.
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  29. Lyon, Thomas J. 2001. This incomparable land: A guide to American nature writing. Minneapolis: Milkweed.
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  31. Provides a detailed history of the genre (including helpful taxonomies and chronologies), from early European encounters with America to the late 20th century. Contextualizes and analyzes canonical figures including Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Burroughs.
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  33. Patterson, Daniel, ed. 2007. Early American nature writers: A biographical encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
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  35. Profiles fifty-two early American nature writers and naturalists, including John and William Bartram, John James Audubon, and Henry David Thoreau. Also includes primary and secondary bibliographies on each featured author, as well as a “Further Reading” section.
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  37. Smallwood, William Martin. 1967. Natural history and the American mind. New York: AMS.
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  39. Examines American natural science, its European roots, and the cultural context from which it grew. Although not comprehensive in its coverage, this foundational text gathers and analyzes some hitherto uncollected material on early American natural historians and their work. Reprint of 1941 edition.
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  41. Anthologies
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  43. All of the following are collections of primary texts on natural history and related fields. While Torrance 1998 covers natural history texts across several continents, most of these collections, including Begiebing and Grumbling 1990, focus on British and American writings. Trimble 1995 is an anthology of modern American nature writing. The scope of Beebe 1988 is wide, yet it is intended for a general audience, whereas Finch and Elder 2002 is specifically targeted toward college students and their instructors. Branch 2004 anthologizes natural history writing about America before Henry David Thoreau’s landmark 1854 text, Walden. McKibben 2008 picks up where Branch 2004 leaves off, with a focus on the shift from natural history writing to environmentalist writing. Unlike most of these anthologies, which are organized chronologically, Gates 2002 is arranged thematically. Like Gates 2002, Bonta 1995 draws attention to women naturalists’ contributions to the field, but while Gates focuses on British women naturalists, Bonta attends to American women’s natural history work.
  44.  
  45. Beebe, William, ed. 1988. The book of naturalists: An anthology of the best natural history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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  47. Collects a cross-section of natural history essays from Aristotle to Rachel Carson. Beebe’s introductions to each author combine insight and humor to create accessible profiles. Intended for a general audience.
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  49. Begiebing, Robert J., and Owen Grumbling, eds. 1990. The literature of nature: The British and American traditions. Medford, NJ: Plexus.
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  51. With the exception of its brief overview of ancient, Renaissance, and Enlightenment thought, this book focuses on 19th- and 20th-century British writers and colonial-era to 20th-century American writers. Combines literary and scientific texts and authors.
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  53. Bonta, Marcia Myers, ed. 1995. American women afield: Writings by pioneering women naturalists. College Station: Texas A&M Univ. Press.
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  55. Organized chronologically and by author, this book collects short writings and excerpts from American women naturalists from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. Includes both well-known naturalists, such as Susan Fenimore Cooper and Rachel Carson, and those naturalists who have been overlooked or lost from the natural history tradition.
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  57. Branch, Michael P., ed. 2004. Reading the roots: American nature writing before Walden. Athens, GA: Univ. of Georgia Press.
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  59. Anthologizes roughly three hundred years of natural history and nature writing before Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854) to provide historical context for these scientific and literary traditions.
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  61. Finch, Robert, and John Elder, eds. 2002. The Norton book of nature writing. New York: W. W. Norton.
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  63. Focuses on natural history writing of the Western world from the 18th century through the late 20th century, with an emphasis on nonfiction essays. This expanded 2002 College Edition is supplemented by a “Field Guide” designed for teachers and students. Originally published in 1990.
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  65. Gates, Barbara T., ed. 2002. In nature’s name: An anthology of women’s writing and illustration, 1780–1930. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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  67. This collection, focused on British women’s writing, is organized by theme and subject (rather than chronologically or generically). Sections such as “Popularizing Science,” “Adventure,” and “Protecting” indicate different ways in which 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century British women participated in and contributed to natural history.
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  69. McKibben, Bill, ed. 2008. American earth: Environmental writing since Thoreau. New York: Library of America.
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  71. Traces the history of American environmentalist thought through both literary and nonliterary texts, many of which draw on natural history. Includes an eighty-page portfolio of illustrations and a two-hundred-year timeline of American environmentalism.
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  73. Torrance, Robert M., ed. 1998. Encompassing nature: A sourcebook. Washington, DC: Counterpoint.
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  75. This sweeping collection of writings demonstrates historical constructions of the natural world. Ranges from ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and China to the Western Enlightenment tradition up to the 19th century.
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  77. Trimble, Stephen A., ed. 1995. Words from the land: Encounters with natural history writing. Reno: Univ. of Nevada Press.
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  79. Originally published in 1989, the expanded, 1995 edition of this anthology collects essays and excerpts from 20th-century American natural history writers, including Barry Lopez, John McPhee, and Peter Matthiessen. Photographs and brief biographical notes precede each writer’s selection to provide context.
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  81. Journals
  82.  
  83. While some journals, such as the American Naturalist and Journal of Natural History, represent contemporary natural history in highly scientific terms, others trace their lineage from the more literary and artistic branches of the natural history tradition. For example, Orion Magazine features environmental nature writing that is often more concerned with the literary, aesthetic, ethical, and cultural implications of natural history, and Natural History is a magazine that describes natural history expedition and research findings but is intended for a general audience. Isis focuses on the history of scientific study, institutions, and practices, including natural history. The Journal of Natural History Education and Experience approaches natural history in terms of pedagogical and curriculum concerns, and is intended to facilitate the use of natural history in education.
  84.  
  85. The American Naturalist. 1867–.
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  87. Focuses on ecology, evolution, and population and integrative biology research to present theoretical and methodological articles. Geared toward scientists.
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  89. Isis. 1912–1915, 1919–.
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  91. The official journal of the History of Science Society, Isis focuses on the history of science, including the scholarly study of the history of medicine, technology, and natural history.
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  93. Journal of Natural History. 1967–.
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  95. Established in 1841 under the title Annals and Magazine of Natural History, this biweekly journal gained its new name in 1967. Focuses primarily on entomology and zoology, and is intended for an audience of scientists.
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  97. Journal of Natural History Education and Experience. 2009–.
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  99. Promotes the study and teaching of natural history as a way to engage with and understand the physical world. Particularly interested in the development of natural history curricula for primary, secondary, and postsecondary students, as well as the general public.
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  101. Natural History. 1900–.
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  103. This general interest magazine makes available to nonscientists the major findings from expeditions and research projects sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History (which founded the magazine in 1900) and other science centers and natural history museums.
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  105. Orion Magazine. 1982–.
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  107. More literary and aesthetic than scientific in its orientation, Orion focuses on contemporary environmental problems and concerns, with specific attention to the intersection of nature and culture in American and global contexts.
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  109. The Ancient World and Renaissance Europe
  110.  
  111. The main current of the natural history tradition in the ancient world was initially driven by philosophy. Phenomenology, logic, and ethics, informed by close observation of the environment, made up the field of study. The central questions of this age concerned the human place in nature, and attended to the visible relationships between living beings and inanimate objects. From these, a correct mode of living was extrapolated. Later, the natural history tradition was often expressed in poetic verse intended to convey a mixture of aesthetic interpretation and practical knowledge of the natural world. Finally, many of the first great treatises to assemble human knowledge about nature were undertaken during this period. The natural history tradition of the Renaissance drew inspiration from the recovery of texts from the ancient world. Those earlier efforts to comprehend the order of the cosmos resulted in scientific and technological advances that have had a lasting impact on Western life and thought.
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  113. Primary Sources
  114.  
  115. Studies of Greek philosophers and Roman scientists provide a good entry point into ancient natural history. These early models established the critical foundation that informed Renaissance scientific discovery. Plato 1977 investigates the order of the universe, while Theocritus 1963 ascribes aesthetic value to rural landscapes. Theophrastus 1976–1990 is concerned specifically with botany. Virgil 2005 and Lucretius 1977 follow in the poetic tradition of Theocritus 1963, combining practical rural knowledge with a celebration of rural life, whereas Ptolemy 1991 and Pliny 1991 pursue a scientific approach to organizing and cataloging human knowledge. Copernicus 1978 is representative of the bridge between ancient and Renaissance knowledge, building on Ptolemy’s earlier astronomical calculations to theorize a sun-centered solar system.
  116.  
  117. Copernicus. 1978. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Edited by Jerzy Dobrzycki. Translated by Edward Rosen. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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  119. This book, originally first published in Latin in 1543, famously posits a sun-centered, rather than an earth-centered, solar system, radically challenging Ptolemy’s earlier theory. Divided into six sections, this cornerstone astronomy text describes Copernican cosmology and the movements of the stars, sun, and moon.
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  121. Lucretius. 1977. The nature of things. Translated by Frank Olin Copley. New York: W. W. Norton.
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  123. Published in Latin as De rerum natura sometime before 54 BCE, this pastoral poem is an epicurean philosophical tract providing keen, unromantic observations of nature. Lucretius argues against deifying nature and rejects superstition in general. Instead, he is in favor of practical, material exchanges with the land.
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  125. Plato. 1977. Timaeus and Critias. Translated by Desmond Lee. New York: Penguin.
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  127. In the Timaeus, Plato accounts for the formation and orderliness of the universe, which he believed was divinely created. His text discusses the elements from which the world is composed and expresses the human relationship to them. Written in Greek in c. 360 BCE.
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  129. Pliny the Elder. 1991. Natural history: A selection. Translated by John F. Healy. London: Penguin.
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  131. This is the first encyclopedia of ancient knowledge. Enormous in scope, Pliny’s work comprises thirty-seven books, which include chapters on mathematics, anthropology, botany, and mineralogy. Supplies a comprehensive portrait of the Roman world’s perspective on nature. Written in Latin c. 77–79 CE.
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  133. Ptolemy. 1991. The geography. Translated and edited by Edward Luther Stevenson and Joseph Fischer. New York: Dover.
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  135. Attempting to define the known world, this 2nd-century treatise on the principles of cartography assembles data gathered by travelers. It is notable for employing latitude and longitude lines to position features and locales in highly detailed atlases. Although he was a Roman citizen of Egypt, Ptolemy wrote in Greek.
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  137. Theocritus. 1963. Idylls. Translated by Barriss Mills. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue Univ. Studies.
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  139. Written in Greek during the 3rd century BCE in the language of rural people and peasants, the Idylls are poems about the country and the town, depicting interactions between gods, nymphs, and shepherds. Important as a cornerstone of later Western landscape aesthetics.
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  141. Theophrastus. 1976–1990. De causis plantarum. 3 vols. Translated by Benedict Einarson and George K. K. Link. London: Heinemann.
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  143. Aristotle’s pupil and successor, Theophrastus was among the earliest writers on plant physiology. His book includes discussions of climate, agricultural cultivation, and the various stages of plant growth. Written in Greek during the third century BCE. Published in the United States by Harvard University Press.
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  145. Virgil. 2005. Georgics. Translated by Janet Lembke. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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  147. Written by the Roman poet Virgil, and influenced by Theocritus’s Idylls, Georgics is a pastoral poem depicting farming life. It includes descriptions of animals and plants and celebrates the joys of rural living. It contains a proto-ecological call for prudent use of the land. Originally published in Latin in 29 BCE.
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  149. Aristotle
  150.  
  151. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle is a foundational figure in natural history as well as philosophy. Empirically minded, he was largely responsible for the formalization of the scientific method, the organization of a pre-Linnaean biological classification system, and the development of a systematic approach to reasoning. He produced a hierarchy of being that positioned humans, animals, and plants in relation to each other, reflecting their interconnectedness and signifying the functions of their souls. Aristotle 1941a discusses reproduction and male and female anatomy specifically, while Aristotle 1941b discusses animal physiology more broadly, including variation and composition, in addition to the habits and methods of subsistence of a range mammals, insects, and fish. Aristotle 1941c systematizes and taxonomizes animals by their common and distinguishing traits. Aristotle 1941d is a far-reaching combination of science and philosophy that examines the role of the senses in humans’ connection to place. It interrogates the composition and interrelations of time, space, and motion.
  152.  
  153. Aristotle. 1941a. De generatione animalium (On the generation of animals). In The basic works of Aristotle. Edited by Richard Peter McKeon, 665–688. New York: Random House.
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  155. A discussion of the biological contributions of both sexes in the reproduction of animals.
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  157. Aristotle. 1941b. Historia anumalium (The history of animals). In The basic works of Aristotle. Edited by Richard Peter McKeon, 633–642. New York: Random House.
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  159. Discusses the physiology and natural history of animals, including early taxonomic evaluations and classifications.
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  161. Aristotle. 1941c. De partibus animalium (On the parts of animals). In The basic works of Aristotle. Edited by Richard Peter McKeon, 643–664. New York: Random House.
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  163. This book represents the foundation of zoological science. It discusses how animals come into existence and establishes critical methodologies for analyzing them.
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  165. Aristotle. 1941d. Physica (Physics). In The basic works of Aristotle. Edited by Richard Peter McKeon, 218–397. New York: Random House.
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  167. A collection of lectures on change and motion, Physics is a philosophical interrogation of perception and the senses as they pertain to our knowledge of our surroundings. It is directed specifically toward studies of the order of nature and objects.
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  169. Secondary Sources
  170.  
  171. These studies provide a range of biographical information, historical context, critical readings, and general overviews of the natural history tradition during the ancient and Renaissance periods. Together, they map the trajectory of scientific developments and aesthetic responses to the environment. Glacken 1967 is a valuable starting point, as it traces the human desire for ordering the world through ancient culture, the Middle Ages, and the Early Modern era. French 1994 is specific to early Mediterranean civilizations, incorporating biographies of several primary figures. Dear 2001 is concerned with the impact of science on culture, whereas Debus 1978 examines the cultural contexts impacting the sciences. Ogilvie 2006 discusses the evolution of scientific methodologies. Like Dear 2001 and Ogilvie 2006, Hall 1994 appraises the major discoveries of Renaissance scientists. Conversely, Thomas 1996 and Hughes 1994 present deft discussions of environmental crises during the Renaissance, examining the development of civilization in the context of environmental exploitation.
  172.  
  173. Dear, Peter. 2001. Revolutionizing the sciences: European knowledge and its ambitions, 1500–1700. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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  175. An introduction to the scientific revolution and the changes it manifested. This text supplies a thorough description of the culture of the period and provides discussions of key figures such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and Sir Isaac Newton. It argues for continuity from early Greek and Roman natural history through the era of Renaissance scientific discovery.
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  177. Debus, Allen G. 1978. Man and nature in the Renaissance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  179. This volume considers the cultural contexts of the era by exploring mysticism and humanism and their impact on the sciences. Additionally, it examines the emergent scientific methodologies of the period.
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  181. French, Roger. 1994. Ancient natural history. London: Routledge.
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  183. This book focuses on ancient conceptions of the natural world, particularly with respect to plants and animals. It considers different approaches to natural history taken by various societies and focuses on central works in the early sciences, including Aristotle’s studies of animals, Theophrastus’s descriptions of plants, and Pliny’s expansive natural history.
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  185. Glacken, Clarence J. 1967. Traces on the Rhodian shore: Nature and culture in Western thought from ancient times to the end of the eighteenth century. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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  187. Containing sections on the ancient world, the Christian Middle Ages, and the Early Modern era, Glacken’s book isolates the overarching theme of human desire for purpose and order in approaching the physical world. Examines concepts of divinity and mythology, concluding that three ideas have guided human approaches to the natural world: a designed earth, the influence of the environment on humans, and humans as modifiers of the environment.
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  189. Hall, Marie Boas. 1994. The scientific Renaissance, 1450–1630. New York: Dover.
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  191. Beginning with the Copernican revolution, this text provides a significant overview of Renaissance-era sciences, including mathematics, physiology, and astronomy.
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  193. Hughes, J. Donald. 1994. Pan’s travail: Environmental problems of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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  195. This book examines early ecological crises such as deforestation, overgrazing, overhunting, and erosion. Includes discussion of how environmental factors led to the decline of Greek and Roman cultures. Hughes shows that human civilization has always experienced environmental problems as a result of its interactions with nature.
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  197. Ogilvie, Brian W. 2006. The science of describing: Natural history in Renaissance Europe. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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  199. A history of descriptive science from the late 15th to the early 17th centuries, Ogilvie’s book traces the roots of the discipline through humanism, philology, and natural philosophy. This text examines the emergence of taxonomy and classification, which required the development of normalizing methodologies of observation and record keeping. It includes illustrations and offers a lucid account of Renaissance natural history.
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  201. Thomas, Keith. 1996. Man and the natural world: Changing attitudes in England, 1500–1800. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  203. Thomas investigates humans’ struggle to understand their place in the natural world, especially their relationship to natural landscapes and the nonhuman. He assesses the complex connections between human civilization and environmental exploitation and attempts to reconstruct the environmental imagination of the period.
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  205. Enlightenment Europe
  206.  
  207. Natural history during the Enlightenment was formulated around the growing impulse to categorize and delineate differences among species. The system of scientific taxonomy emerging from this period, often referred to as the Linnaean system, remains standard today. Much of Enlightenment natural history is localized to particular landscapes, as both professional and amateur botanists, geologists, and naturalists began to focus on the unique natural characteristics of a defined geographical place. This interest in categorizing and describing the natural features of a landscape was important to scientists who traversed the globe as part of exploration voyages, as well as those who remained at home to document local flora and fauna. Natural history during the Enlightenment also demonstrated a philosophical interest in issues of heritage and superiority, and works from this era therefore discuss the means by which certain species thrive while others do not. Ideas of superiority and degeneracy appear in philosophical conversations from this period regarding not only species but also human cultures.
  208.  
  209. Primary Sources
  210.  
  211. The most influential documents of this period, like Buffon 1793 and Linnaeus 1964, taxonomize the species of various ecosystems, and they thus helped lay the foundation for modern scientific categorization. The systematization of natural sciences during this time influenced philosophers’ works like Rousseau 1984, which applies the taxonomic project to make distinctions among cultures and peoples. Sources like White 1977 and Wordsworth 2008 focus on the natural history of a localized place or landscape, such as a village or rural district, while natural history narratives like Banks 1962 record exotic flora and fauna observed while participating in a voyage of exploration. Though Knapp 1831 is published slightly after the close of the Enlightenment, the text nevertheless provides an important philosophical bridge between early landscape-based natural history like White 1977 and Romantic texts like Wordsworth 2008.
  212.  
  213. Banks, Joseph. 1962. The Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks, 1768–1771. Sydney: Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales.
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  215. Between August 1768 and July 1771, Banks accompanied James Cook aboard his ship Endeavour on an exploration of various regions of South America and the South Pacific. The journal provides descriptions of a region considered exotic by Europeans. Originally published in 1896.
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  217. Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de. 1793. Natural history of birds, fish, insects and reptiles, embellished with upwards of two hundred engravings. 5 vols. London: J. S. Barr.
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  219. Most famous for Buffon’s theory of biogeography, which posits that flora and fauna vary according to their geographic location. Originally published in French in thirty-six volumes between 1749 and 1788, this collection of natural history writing was popular in its day.
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  221. Knapp, John Leonard. 1831. The journal of a naturalist. Philadelphia: Carey & Lea.
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  223. Strongly influenced by the writing of Gilbert White and other Enlightenment naturalists, Knapp described his book as “the journal of a traveller through the inexhaustible regions of nature.” Records the unique geology, pedology, and botany of England and includes discussions of trees, birds, and mammals. The original 1829 publication included natural history illustrations by Knapp himself.
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  225. Linnaeus, Carolus. 1964. Systema naturae. Translated by M. S. J. Engle-Ledeboer and H. Engel. Nieuwkoop, The Netherlands: B. de Graaf.
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  227. Originally published in 1735 in Latin, this book introduced to the natural sciences the concept of formal taxonomy, a system that remains standard today. Linnaeus is credited with revolutionizing the way scientists conceive of the relations between organisms and ecosystems.
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  229. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1984. A discourse on inequality. Edited and translated by Maurice Cranston. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
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  231. This highly influential discourse is best known for Rousseau’s notion of the natural man as a noble savage, free from the constraints and corruption of civilization. Rousseau marks a philosophical division between the influences of nature and culture on humans. Originally published in 1755 in French.
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  233. White, Gilbert. 1977. The natural history and antiquities of Selborne. Edited by Richard Mabey. London: Penguin.
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  235. A collection of letters, first published in 1789, recording the natural history of White’s home village of Selborne, England. This work is best known for its detailed observation of animal activity in a local environment, and it demonstrates a synthesis of natural history and Enlightenment religious sensibilities.
  236. Find this resource:
  237. Wordsworth, Dorothy. 2008. The Grasmere and Alfoxden journals. Edited by Pamela Woof. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  239. The sister of the poet William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth records in these journals both her experiences living with her brother and her observations of the landscapes of the Lake District and Somerset. Originally published in 1798 and 1800–1803, respectively.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Secondary Sources
  242.  
  243. Many secondary materials relating to Enlightenment natural history are similar in approach to Desmond 2003; Fox, et al. 1995; and Stearns 1970; which focus on the context and influence of natural history during this period, attempting to identify and describe the philosophical underpinnings of a newly emergent form of science. Larson 1994 examines the changes in those underpinnings during the course of the Enlightenment, focusing on the thinking of several major figures. Other works, such as Roger 1997, Koerner 1999, Huxley 2007, and Foster 1988, are scholarly biographies of influential figures of the time, such as Carolus Linneaus, Georges Louis Leclerc (Comte de Buffon), and Gilbert White. O’Malley and Meyers 2008 focuses on the important illustrations that often accompanied natural history writing during the Enlightenment.
  244.  
  245. Desmond, Ray. 2003. Great natural history books and their creators. London: British Library.
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  247. This volume provides useful context for the most important natural history books, especially those containing illustrations. Offers an overview of the natural history tradition and its most influential figures.
  248. Find this resource:
  249. Foster, Paul G. M. 1988. Gilbert White and his records: A scientific biography. London: Christopher Helm.
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  251. A biography of Gilbert White that focuses on his interests in natural history, antiquities, and religion. Provides helpful context for understanding White’s influential scientific work.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Fox, Christopher, Roy Porter, and Robert Wokler, eds. 1995. Inventing human science: Eighteenth-century domains. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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  255. An interdisciplinary study of the flourishing of science during the Enlightenment, as well as a discussion of that movement’s role in shaping modern life. The essays included in this collection work together to provide an accurate portrayal of the Enlightenment’s influence on science and culture.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Huxley, Robert, ed. 2007. The great naturalists. London: Thames & Hudson.
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  259. An anthology of abbreviated biographies of naturalists, including Carolus Linnaeus Georges Louis Leclerc (Comte de Buffon), and Sir Joseph Banks. While this volume ranges from Antiquity to the 19th century, it contains a substantial section focusing on Enlightenment natural history.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Koerner, Lisbet. 1999. Linnaeus: Nature and nation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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  263. A scholarly biography of this important figure that draws heavily on a range of archival materials to portray Carolus Linnaeus’s thinking, particularly analyzing the way his scientific projects demonstrate an economic sensibility. Written to engage both scholarly and general audiences.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Larson, James L. 1994. Interpreting nature: The science of living form from Linnaeus to Kant. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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  267. An examination of the changes in scientific inquiry throughout the Enlightenment, focusing on the shift away from earlier arguments for a natural order to the world. Focuses on key figures like Carolus Linnaeus, Georges Louis Leclerc (Comte de Buffon), Albrecht von Haller, and Emmanuel Kant.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. O’Malley, Therese, and Amy R. W. Meyers. 2008. The art of natural history: Illustrated treatises and botanical paintings, 1400–1850. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art.
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  271. A richly illustrated collection of papers presented at the National Gallery’s 2002 symposium, The Art and History of Botanical Painting and Natural History Treatises. This volume will be particularly valuable to scholars focusing on the role of art in natural history.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Roger, Jacques. 1997. Buffon: A life in natural history. Translated by Sarah Lucille Bonnefoi. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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  275. This biography engages in a careful analysis of Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon’s writing in order to trace his considerable influence on Enlightenment scientific thinking. Focuses on Buffon as a scientist, public intellectual, and writer.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Stearns, Raymond Phineas. 1970. Science in the British colonies of America. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.
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  279. While this book focuses on science in the British colonies, the introduction and opening chapters will prove especially useful to scholars hoping to understand the aims of Enlightenment science throughout the continent. Makes a clear argument for the influence of New World discoveries on European thinking.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Modern and Contemporary Europe
  282.  
  283. Spanning the period from the beginning of the 19th century to the present, modern and contemporary European natural history has largely been interested in continuing the project of close observation of species that naturalists had been involved with in the decades prior. While natural history during this period has continued the Enlightenment interest in charting the scientific distinctions between various landscapes, ecosystems, and species, the field became significantly more literary and even poetic during the 19th century. In the 20th and early 21st centuries, natural history has continued to transform into the genre of nature writing, which applies a literary and poetic sensibility to the understanding of the human relationship to nature, and often focuses on issues of environmental protection. The most important ideas emerging from this period concern the way the natural world evolves over time, a concept that has greatly influenced not only the sciences but also the religious, philosophical, and artistic sensibilities of the era. Likewise, natural history during the early years of the 19th century continued to have a deep interest in understanding the scientific workings of the natural world, often spurred by the hope that scientific discovery might facilitate religious insight.
  284.  
  285. Primary Sources
  286.  
  287. Modern and contemporary European natural history is similar to that of the Enlightenment in its interest in observing, describing, and taxonomizing particular species and ecosystems. However, natural history writing in this more recent period becomes increasingly lyrical, and both Baker 1967 and Clare 1983 offer examples of the poetic tendencies of modern European natural history. Similarly, Mabey 2007 is a poetic memoir offering a personal account of the emotional impact of a specific landscape. Hudson 1919 is a collection of ruminations about particular local species. Jefferies 2009 likewise focuses on the characteristics of local flora and fauna, though it focuses more on the changes the author detects in the landscape. The modern era also demonstrates a continued interest in the philosophical ramifications of natural history. This philosophical interest is apparent in the cosmological project of Humboldt 1997 and the strong religious interests of Paley 2006. Perhaps most importantly, this period marks the introduction of expansive theories concerning both biological evolution and long-term geological change, the latter of which is a core concern of Lyell 1997.
  288.  
  289. Baker, J. A. 1967. The peregrine. New York: Harper & Row.
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  291. Baker documents three seasons following a pair of peregrine falcons across eastern England. The book demonstrates the close attention to animal habits of classical natural history combined with the imagination and literary flair that is increasingly apparent in contemporary natural history writing.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Clare, John. 1983. The natural history prose writings of John Clare. Edited by Margaret Grainger. Oxford: Clarendon.
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  295. Known as both a poet and naturalist, John Clare’s most notable natural history work is a compilation of notebook entries in which he examines the British countryside.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Hudson, W. H. 1919. The book of a naturalist. New York: George H. Doran.
  298. DOI: 10.5962/bhl.title.20166Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. A collection of Hudson’s natural history essays—some previously published in magazines—demonstrating his idiosyncratic observations of nature in England. Hudson ruminates on subjects as diverse as “The Discontented Squirrel” and “The Potato at Home and in England.”
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Humboldt, Alexander von. 1997. Cosmos: A sketch of a physical description of the universe. Vol. 1. Translated by E. C. Otté. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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  303. First of two volumes, originally published in five volumes. Very popular in its day, this five-volume work attempts to provide a comprehensive “physical description of the universe.” Considered a good example of Romantic natural history. Originally published 1845–1862 in German.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Jefferies, Richard. 2009. The gamekeeper at home: Sketches of natural history and rural life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  306. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511703263Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. Focuses on the life of a gamekeeper and his interactions with rural flora and fauna. These essays document environmental changes taking place in early modern Britain. Originally published in 1878.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Lyell, Charles. 1997. Principles of geology. Edited by James A. Secord. London: Penguin.
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  311. This important three-volume work is best known for Lyell’s argument concerning the role of geology in tracing changes in the physical geography of the earth over time. Strongly influenced Charles Darwin’s research in South America. Originally published 1830–1833.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Mabey, Richard. 2007. Nature cure: A story of depression and healing. Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press.
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  315. A combination of natural history and memoir. While simultaneously confronting a deepening depression and a move to a new landscape, Mabey engages in close observation of the natural world around him. The poet and naturalist John Clare figures prominently in Mabey’s narrative. Originally published in 2005 (London: Chatto & Windus).
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Paley, William. 2006. Natural theology. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  319. Most famous for including the “watchmaker” analogy, in which Paley compares the natural world made by God to a watch made by a watchmaker who allows it to run unaltered after its creation. The book aims to prove God’s existence through an examination of natural phenomena. Originally published in 1802.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Charles Darwin
  322.  
  323. Charles Darwin is considered the most influential European naturalist of the modern era. His theories of evolution and natural selection revolutionized the scientific understanding of predation, survival, the complex structure of ecosystems, and the biological character of species. Darwin 1959, which includes Darwin’s observations of flora and fauna while aboard an exploration voyage, documents some of the preliminary findings that would provide the foundation for his theories concerning evolution. Darwin 2003 introduces Darwin’s theory that species evolve and adapt to their surroundings over time, a concept applied to humans in Darwin 1989. Darwin 2008 provides a survey of Darwin’s thinking through letters written over much of his career.
  324.  
  325. Darwin, Charles. 1959. The voyage of the Beagle. Edited by Millicent E. Selsam. New York: Harper.
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  327. Originally published in 1839 as Journal and Remarks (also commonly known as Journal of Researches), this is a record of Darwin’s scientific observations as a part of the HMS Beagle voyage around the globe. Demonstrates how Darwin’s observations of exotic flora and fauna eventually led to his theory of evolution.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Darwin, Charles. 1989. The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. New York: New York Univ. Press.
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  331. Considered one of the most influential documents of its time, in part because of the way it applies Darwin’s evolutionary theories to humans. Originally published in 1871.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Darwin, Charles. 2003. On the origin of species by means of natural selection. Edited by Joseph Carroll. Peterborough, Canada: Broadview.
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  335. Documents Darwin’s theories concerning evolution and natural selection, two of the most influential ideas of the 19th century. Originally published in 1859.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Darwin, Charles. 2008. Origins: Selected letters of Charles Darwin, 1822–1859. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  339. A collection of Darwin’s correspondence, offering a glimpse of Darwin as a youth, then a young academic, through his famous Beagle voyage, and up to the publication of On the Origin of Species.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Secondary Sources
  342.  
  343. Secondary scholarship on modern and contemporary European natural history focuses on the changes in the field over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly commenting on natural history’s impact on European culture as a whole. Lloyd 1985 and Allen 1976 provide scholarly surveys of influential naturalists and the cultural impact of natural history as a growing scientific field. Other scholarship examines modern natural history by focusing on the literary qualities of emerging science, as do Heringman 2003 and Merrill 1989. Similarly, Kerridge and Sammells 1998 analyzes literature concerned with environmental degradation, while Garrard 2004 traces changes in thinking and writing about the environment in various areas of cultural production. Williams 1973 treats the importance of literary and scientific depictions of urban and rural settings in English culture, tracing a growing split between these spheres.
  344.  
  345. Allen, David Elliston. 1976. The naturalist in Britain: A social history. London: Allen Lane.
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  347. This volume charts natural history’s social influence from the 17th to 19th centuries. Includes a useful examination of the intersection of science with culture, religion, literature, and economics.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Garrard, Greg. 2004. Ecocriticism. London: Routledge.
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  351. Analyzes the cultural changes in thinking and writing about the environment by tracing the evolving meaning of key terms including pollution, pastoral, wilderness, apocalypse, dwelling, animals, and earth. Intended to be useful to both scholarly and general audiences.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Heringman, Noah. 2003. Romantic science: The literary forms of natural history. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.
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  355. This collection of essays argues that Romantic literature was influenced by discoveries emerging from the natural history of the period. Writers examined include William Wordsworth, Gilbert White, Thomas Jefferson, and Mary Shelley.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Kerridge, Richard, and Neil Sammells, eds. 1998. Writing the environment: Ecocriticism and literature. London: Zed.
  358. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  359. An anthology that demonstrates the broad range of approaches to environmentalism and writing about the environment. Using a range of theoretical approaches, including ecofeminism, body politics, and Heideggerian philosophy, the essays in this collection examine the ways that literature, philosophy, and popular culture have been affected by a concern for environmental issues.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Lloyd, Clare. 1985. The travelling naturalists. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press.
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  363. Focuses on British scientists traveling abroad and their influence on the theory and practice of natural history. The book’s examination is limited to eight Victorian naturalists.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Merrill, Lynn L. 1989. The romance of Victorian natural history. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  367. Provides a close analysis of natural history as a genre, maintaining that this growing field influenced Victorian literature. Discusses the literary and rhetorical character of natural history, and analyzes the work of writers such as Charles Darwin, John Ruskin, Henry Walter Bates, and John Burroughs.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Williams, Raymond. 1973. The country and the city. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  371. Examines the influences of country and city on English culture from the 16th century forward, charting the complications resulting from a literary and scientific division between the rural and urban.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Early America
  374.  
  375. Early American natural history includes texts by writers who were born in America as well as those who explored the New World, and extends from 15th-century exploration texts to 18th-century writing. Many texts from this period document travels in eastern North America and reflect on the novelty of this new landscape. Contending with the challenges of wilderness and settlement, and even finding words to adequately express the grandeur of nature in North America, these texts mark the first shifts in the trajectory of American natural history. In order to understand the variety of early American rhetorical genres and writing styles, scholars typically begin by reading early exploration narratives, move through early promotional literature, and conclude with 18th-century American natural history texts. All of these, however, display a natural history impulse, as they document experiences in the natural world—a fundamental element of life and even survival in colonial America. Unlike later science writing, these early texts often infuse natural history observations with religious speculation or with stylized literary language.
  376.  
  377. Primary Sources
  378.  
  379. These foundational early American texts include promotional literature, religious writing, exploration narratives, and explicitly scientific writing. While Branch 2004 offers a concise introduction to a diverse range of writers from this period, other texts included here are specific accounts of the environment in the New World. These sources progress from Wood 1977, one of the first and best-known promotional texts of the 17th century, to religiously oriented discussions of nature in Mather 2000. Bartram 1996, Catesby 1974, and Kalm 2011 demonstrate important shifts from prescientific writing to increasingly scientific observations. In contrast to these, Crèvecoeur 2009 and Jefferson 1982 demonstrate the direction of the natural history tradition in the late 18th century, as these texts instill direct observation with a romantic, literary sensibility and style.
  380.  
  381. Bartram, William. 1996. Travels and other writings. New York: Library of America.
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  383. Integrates scientific observation and personal experience to create an early example of the increasingly scientific mentality of colonial America. One of the best known works of natural history from this period, Travels describes a four-year journey from the Carolinas to Florida. Originally published in 1791.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Branch, Michael P., ed. 2004. Reading the roots: American nature writing before Walden. Athens, GA: Univ. of Georgia Press.
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  387. This book anthologizes major figures before Thoreau to demonstrate the significant presence of nature writing in early American texts. This broad overview of the field provides a useful introduction to the major authors, landscapes, and rhetorical forms of the period.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Catesby, Mark. 1974. Natural history of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands: Containing two hundred and twenty figures of birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, insects, and plants. Savannah, GA: Beehive.
  390. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. Providing an early record of North American flora and fauna, yet often ignored because it was later eclipsed by John James Audubon’s work, this is an important contribution to 18th-century American natural history. Both a naturalist and an illustrator, Catesby includes over two hundred colored plates of plants and wildlife. Originally published 1731–1743.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John de. 2009. Letters from an American farmer. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  395. Outlines both an idyllic landscape and the problematic influence of culture on natural and agricultural spaces. Moving from detailed observations of nature to the impending dangers of the Revolutionary War, Crèvecoeur’s book is an important contribution to 18th-century American literary natural history. Originally published in 1782.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Jefferson, Thomas. 1982. Notes on the state of Virginia. Edited by William Peden. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.
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  399. A prominent example of the literary impulse within natural history. Recording scientific observations and also integrating lyrical reflections on the landscape, Jefferson’s work helps to shift natural history toward the Romantic literary style that would become prominent in both Europe and America. Originally published in 1784.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Kalm, Peter. 2011. Travels into North America: Containing its natural history, with the civil, ecclesiastical and commercial state of the country. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  403. A Swedish botanist commissioned by the Swiss Academy to search North America for plants capable of withstanding harsh European weather, Kalm chronicles both natural history and American culture. Originally published in Swedish in 1753–1761, the first English edition appeared in 1770.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Mather, Cotton. 2000. The Christian philosopher. Edited by Winton U. Solberg. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.
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  407. Instills religious beliefs with insights from the field of natural history, and thus provides a unique perspective on scientific approaches to nature. Infamous for his involvement in the Salem witch trials, Mather’s observations of New England’s flora and fauna are valuable contributions to colonial natural history. Originally published in 1721.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Wood, William. 1977. New England’s prospect. Edited by Alden T. Vaughan. Amherst: Univ. of Massachusetts Press.
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  411. Promotes the wonders of 17th-century New England for prospective colonists coming from Europe. Employing detailed descriptions of the natural world and information about native inhabitants, this book is both a promotional text and an important work of colonial natural history. Originally published in 1634.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Secondary Sources
  414.  
  415. Studies of early American natural history range from investigations into the state of American science, and its changes over the course of the first few hundred years of European settlement in North America, to more specific examinations of how these impulses relate to global developments in the sciences. Whereas Stearns 1970 and Lewis 2011 consider how natural history develops in response to cultural changes, Schiebinger and Swan 2007 analyzes how the emergence of specific scientific discourses inspires changes across American and European culture and economics. This global perspective also characterizes several studies of early American natural history, including Parrish 2006, which considers the flow of scientific information across the Atlantic, and Delourgo and Dew 2008, which compares scientific methods from various cultures. Wilson 1978 considers how these transatlantic exchanges occur in the work of major figures, an approach that continues throughout Regis 1999 and Green 1984, both of which consider how various major writers demonstrate the natural history impulse within their work.
  416.  
  417. Delourgo, James, and Nicholas Dew, eds. 2008. Science and empire in the Atlantic world. New York: Routledge.
  418. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. A comparative study of scientific knowledge from various cultures and groups from around the world. With each chapter focusing on a different nation’s approach to natural history, the collection demonstrates the global interconnections that facilitate the proliferation of scientific knowledge from the 16th to 19th centuries.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Green, John C. 1984. American science in the age of Jefferson. Ames: Iowa State Univ. Press.
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  423. Focuses on Jefferson’s role in the development of American science and recognizes his important contributions in helping America to escape the overshadowing influence of European scientific developments. With chapters devoted to specific areas of scientific inquiry, this book surveys American scientific discourse during the 18th and 19th centuries.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Lewis, Andrew. 2011. A democracy of facts: Natural history in the early republic. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. A study of naturalists after the American Revolution. Considers the cultural challenges faced by scientists during this period, and argues that as naturalists began to gather more local data, the skepticism of nonexperts forced them to align their goals with the working-class populace of America in order to gain cultural authority.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Parrish, Susan Scott. 2006. American curiosity: Cultures of natural history in the colonial British Atlantic world. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.
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  431. Examining how various groups in the British colonies interacted with the natural environment, Parrish considers the flow of scientific information to and from Europe through these often unlikely groups.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Regis, Pamela. 1999. Describing early America: Bartram, Jefferson, Crèvecoeur, and the influence of natural history. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.
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  435. Considering William Bartram, Thomas Jefferson, and Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, this book highlights the importance of natural history in shaping early American worldviews. Regis demonstrates the wide-ranging value of this rising scientific field by arguing that literary natural history has its roots in travel writing. First published in 1992.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Schiebinger, Londa, and Claudia Swan, eds. 2007. Colonial botany: Science, commerce, and politics in the early modern world. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. Highlighting the importance of botany in Europe and colonial America, this book examines the influence of the field on science, economics, and culture.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Stearns, Raymond Phineas. 1970. Science in the British colonies of America. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.
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  443. A profound contribution to the understanding of science in the American colonies. Arguing that American naturalists demanded revolutionary changes to established scientific practices in order to account for the dramatically different environments of North America, Stearns emphasizes the importance of colonial naturalists to the development of various scientific disciplines.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Wilson, David Scofield. 1978. In the presence of nature. Amherst: Univ. of Massachusetts Press.
  446. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. Studying nature, nature reporting, and transatlantic exchanges of natural history information through examination of the work of Jonathan Carver, John Bartram, and Mark Catesby, Wilson argues that the rise of natural history in America forced a reassessment of Old World scientific methods.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Nineteenth-Century America
  450.  
  451. The works in this section are representative of the several genres that made up the American natural history tradition of the 19th century. Among these are the exploration narrative, government sponsored survey, field guide, country ramble, and natural history essay. The first half of the century was defined by efforts to collect, classify, and catalogue the flora and fauna of America’s wild lands. Near midcentury, the study of the natural sciences split, and the distinction between amateur naturalist and professional scientist became explicit. Science writing became the province of men, while the natural history tradition was more often preserved in women’s writing, particularly in the travel essay and the country ramble. Popularized in the burgeoning periodical trade, natural history subjects included ornithological encounter, botanizing, and didactic moral accounts related to habitat and species conservation. Late in the century, as the conservation movement cohered, John Burroughs and John Muir emerged as its central figures and the natural history essay took shape, combining the adventure of exploration, the philosophy of the ramble, and the authority of scientific writing.
  452.  
  453. Primary Sources
  454.  
  455. Lewis and Clark 1983 is useful for its early descriptions of wildlife and Native Americans. Nuttall 1949 followed in this tradition, making important contributions to the fields of botany and ornithology. Nuttall and John Kirk Townsend traveled together, following a route similar to that of Lewis and Clark. Their experiences observing birdlife and plants were recorded in Townsend 1999. Nuttall provided John James Audubon with Townsend’s specimens from their transcontinental journey, which Audubon included in Audubon 1831–1839. Nuttall 1949, Townsend 1999, and Audubon 1831–1839 are representative of the work of a growing number of field naturalists who expanded the catalogue of American flora and fauna in the 1820s and 1830s. Godman 1974 combines natural history’s scientific turn with the more literary country ramble, while Cooper 1998 represents the generation of naturalists and lay persons that followed, whose observations focused on local landscapes in the settled regions of the country. Agassiz 1857–1862 is a prominent example of the increasing professionalization of natural history, while Marsh 1965 developed theories of conservation that impacted global cultures, epitomizing the scientific standardization of the field. Powell 1997 is useful to studies of the desert Southwest and offers anthropological accounts of the Native Americans of the region. Walker 2000, a collection of works by and about John Burroughs, exemplifies the blossoming of the environmental movement in the final decades of the 19th century.
  456.  
  457. Agassiz, Louis. 1857–1862. Contributions to the natural history of the United States. 4 vols. Boston: Little, Brown.
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  459. Originally published by subscription, Agassiz’s text is wide in scope and is informed by his long experience as a scientist. Including a wealth of plates, this reference book was intended to promote the systematization and professionalization of zoology. It emphasizes the importance of new discoveries and the value of the exhaustive study of animal distribution, habitat, anatomy, and growth.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Audubon, John James. 1831–1839. Ornithological biography, or, an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America. Edinburgh: A. Black.
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  463. Written for the general reader and meant to accompany the illustrations in the better known Birds of America, this important book combines extensive (though often dubious) personal narratives with accurate scientific description.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Cooper, Susan Fenimore. 1998. Rural hours. Edited by Rochelle Johnson and Daniel Patterson. Athens, GA: Univ. of Georgia Press.
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  467. This is a foundational natural history text by a 19th-century American woman. Structured around the seasons of upstate New York, and documenting midcentury rural culture, it includes descriptions of local plants, animals, geography, agriculture, and weather. Originally published in 1850, it also anticipates the conservation movement by discussing deforestation and other environmental problems of the period.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Godman, John D. 1974. American natural history, Part 1: Mastology; and Rambles of a naturalist. 4 vols. New York: Arno.
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  471. First published in 1826–1828 in Philadelphia, American Natural History is a comprehensive study of American mammals. This edition pairs Godman’s first book with the posthumously published Rambles of a Naturalist, which focuses on local observations. At a time when naturalists were consumed with describing the flora and fauna of the American wilderness, Rambles of a Naturalist gestures towards new ways of observing and appreciating nature in settled and semiurban environments.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Lewis, Meriwether, and William Clark. 1983–2001. The journals of Lewis and Clark. 13 vols. Edited by Gary E. Moulton. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press.
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  475. Chronicles the preeminent Voyage of Discovery commissioned in 1803 by Thomas Jefferson. The journals of the overland trek to the Pacific Ocean and back to Missouri offer a vibrant account of the expedition’s passage, as well as the first descriptions of an amazing number of western plants, animals, terrain, and Indian tribes.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Marsh, George Perkins. 1965. Man and nature; or, physical geography as modified by human action. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
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  479. Marsh’s 1864 book is a pioneering examination of human impact on the environment. Impressive in scope, it considers human transformation of physical environments, including oceans and rivers, and thus functions as a cautionary, proto-environmentalist text. The contents encompass the globe throughout history and project human impacts into the future with alarming accuracy.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Nuttall, Thomas. 1949. The genera of North American plants, and a catalogue of the species, to the year 1817. Philadelphia: D. Heartt.
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  483. Originally published in 1818 and intended to be portable, this text systematically describes and catalogues species and distributions of American flora. Indispensable in its day, it is a precursor to contemporary field guides.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Powell, John Wesley. 1997. The exploration of the Colorado River and its canyons. 2d ed. New York: Penguin.
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  487. Powell’s 1869 geologic and geographic expedition on the Colorado River essentially filled in the last remaining blank space on the map of the United States, effectively ending the heyday of the government survey. This book discusses the Colorado River watershed and provides a sensitive, detailed ethnographic account of the Native Americans the expedition encountered.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Townsend, John Kirk. 1999. Narrative of a journey across the Rocky Mountains, to the Columbia River. Edited by George A. Jobanek. Corvalis: Oregon State Univ. Press.
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  491. The journals from a private transcontinental expedition on what would later become known as the Oregon Trail. Contains ethnographies that are racist by today’s standards, but identifies new species of birds, mammals, and plants, and describes the territory. The narrative was published in 1839 and also contains descriptions of the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), Chile, and the return trip around Cape Horn.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Walker, Charlotte Zoe, ed. 2000. Sharp eyes: John Burroughs and American nature writing. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press.
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  495. Burroughs, a prolific essayist and a central figure in the conservation movement, produced essays on a wide range of topics, including fishing, rafting, and biography, in addition to natural history. This collection provides a good general introduction to this wealth of material, offering examples from and discussions of work spanning Burroughs’s career.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. John Muir
  498.  
  499. John Muir is known as the foremost environmental activist of the 19th century. He is associated with the Sierra Nevada, and is remembered for spearheading the creation of Yosemite National Park and as the founder of the Sierra Club. Muir 1989a, his most comprehensive natural history book, describes California’s topography and the effects of glaciation, flooding, and storms, in addition to depicting forest and plant life. Muir 1988 contains a conservation narrative as its subtext, but primarily features discussions of the geology, weather, plants, and animals Muir observed while herding sheep in the southern Sierra. Muir 1989b models the growth of a modern conservation ethic.
  500.  
  501. Muir, John. 1988. My first summer in the Sierra. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
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  503. Comprising field journals written in 1869 and first published in 1911, this book captures the euphoria of Muir’s first experiences in Yosemite. A record of a spiritual rebirth, it also documents environmental degradation already apparent in the Sierra, and expresses Muir’s objections to utilitarian valuations of nature.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Muir, John. 1989a. The mountains of California. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
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  507. A scientific and narrative description of the geology, flora, and fauna of the Sierra Nevada range of California. Illustrated chapters are gleaned from twenty years of field journals and from earlier magazine articles. A foundational text of the preservation movement, first published in 1894.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Muir, John. 1989b. The story of my boyhood and youth. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
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  511. Published posthumously in 1913, this memoir contains reminiscences of Muir’s childhood and early experiences in nature. Describes his education and his developing interest in botany, and identifies the roots of his preservationist beliefs.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Henry David Thoreau
  514.  
  515. Henry David Thoreau, who was mentored by the prominent American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, is among the foremost figures in environmental and literary studies. A practitioner of the country ramble, he is recognized for his acute observations of nature, his philosophical discourses on human relations with the natural world, and his sympathetic pleas for social justice. Thoreau 1998 recalls the early exploration narratives from the first decades of the 19th century. Thoreau 2008 describes his experiment with self-reliance at Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts, and documents his project of homesteading and his resistance to his neighbors’ materialist valuations of nature. It also records the weather, wildlife, and flora of the area. Thoreau 1988, a travelogue akin to Thoreau 1998, is notable for its depiction of a wilderness setting rather than a local, rural one.
  516.  
  517. Thoreau, Henry David. 1988. The Maine woods. New York: Penguin.
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  519. Written in 1848 and published posthumously in 1864, this is an account of Thoreau’s first experience of wilderness. Includes the now famous account of Thoreau’s ascent of Mt. Ktaadn (Katahdin), and contains an appendix of flora, fauna, and Indian terminology that follows in the tradition of earlier expedition narratives.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Thoreau, Henry David. 1998. A week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers. New York: Penguin.
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  523. First published in 1849, tells the story of a river journey undertaken by Thoreau and his brother John in 1839. Often digresses from narrative to natural history, literature, and philosophy, thus demonstrating a global sensibility in a local context.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Thoreau, Henry David. 2008. Walden, Civil Disobedience, and other writings. 3d ed. Edited by William Rossi. New York: W. W. Norton.
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  527. Walden, the quintessential American natural history book, was first published in 1854. The product of a deliberate attempt at simple living, it documents an experiment in self-reliance. Thoreau notes seasonal changes, plant and animal life, and acknowledges human waste and incursion into the natural world. In many senses it provided a blueprint for environmentalism and the genre of literary natural history.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Secondary Sources
  530.  
  531. Nash 2001 discusses the American aesthetic response to wilderness, while Buell 1995 examines the literary tradition surrounding it. Worster 1977 focuses directly on the historical implications of human impacts on the environment, and Judd 2009 investigates the origins of conservationist and preservationist thought. Moring 2002, Welch 1998, and Irmscher 1999 provide biographical overviews of natural historians, and they are useful to those interested in studying a broader selection of prominent figures. Porter 1986 examines naturalists’ field experiences and the development of the natural history tradition during the first half of the 19th century, while Blum 1993 examines the evolving role of illustration in scientific practice.
  532.  
  533. Blum, Ann Shelby. 1993. Picturing nature: American nineteenth-century zoological illustration. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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  535. Blum reconstructs the growth, professionalization, and institutionalization of the natural history tradition through the evolution of naturalists’ illustrations. Focusing on the practice of taxonomic representation, she examines the developing discipline of zoology and its major figures in relation to advancing print and publishing technologies. This text includes ample black-and-white and color illustrations.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Buell, Lawrence. 1995. The environmental imagination: Thoreau, nature writing, and the formation of American culture. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
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  539. Essential to contemporary environmental literary studies, this influential text underscores nature writing as fundamental to American literature and culture. Examines representations of nature, the influence of the pastoral and Romantic traditions, and includes studies of 19th- and 20th-century texts.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Irmscher, Christoph. 1999. The poetics of natural history: From John Bartram to William James. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.
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  543. Examines well-known natural history collectors, including P. T. Barnum, and the way their projects added meaning to their personal lives. Creates a bridge between natural history and biography, offers an intriguing perspective into the lives of natural historians, and shows the compelling impact of collecting on the broader culture.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Judd, Richard W. 2009. The untilled garden: Natural history and the spirit of conservation in America, 1740–1840. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  547. Discusses the colonial origins of contemporary conservationist and preservationist thought through examinations of the development of the scientific community and its utilitarian and aesthetic goals. Charts the manner in which nature in America has been evaluated and valued.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Moring, John. 2002. Early American naturalists: Exploring the American West, 1804–1900. New York: Cooper Square.
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  551. Provides thoughtful accounts of the adventures and pursuits of foundational American naturalists. Valuable in its coverage of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Thomas Nuttall, and John Muir in particular. Includes a helpful “Further Reading” appendix divided into sections on “General Accounts,” “Individual Naturalists,” and “Journals and Diaries.”
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Nash, Roderick Frazier. 2001. Wilderness and the American mind. 4th ed. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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  555. Provides context for the wilderness tradition from its early European roots to contemporary manifestations, with chapters on American natural history writers such as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold. Addresses the history of contemporary environmental activism, and concentrates on natural history material from the 19th and 20th centuries. Originally published in 1967.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Porter, Charlotte M. 1986. The eagle’s nest: Natural history and American ideas, 1812–1842. Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press.
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  559. Details the experiences of early natural historians and the development of American natural history. Includes accounts of the hardships often suffered by field naturalists. Also presents biographies of selected natural historians. An insightful overview of the state of natural history during its formative years in the mid-19th century.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Welch, Margaret. 1998. The book of nature: Natural history in the United States, 1825–1875. Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press.
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  563. Organized chronologically, this book discusses early- and mid-19th-century texts, including local, regional, and national surveys. Contains important sections on visual imagery, the role of print culture on natural history, and the popularization of the field. Includes period illustrations of animals and plants, and considers the expanding function of photography in contemporary natural history accounts.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Worster, Donald. 1977. Nature’s economy: A history of ecological ideas. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  567. Essential reading for understanding the development of the natural history tradition. Focuses on the late 18th and 19th centuries. Investigates the Romantic tradition, Darwin’s role in ecology, and the American frontier ethos. Also addresses the complex relationship between environmental ethics and economics.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Twentieth-Century and Contemporary America
  570.  
  571. Twentieth-century and contemporary American natural history is closely aligned with the environmental protection movement that gained prominence during the second half of the 20th century. Responding to the increasingly obvious environmental degradation that followed the Industrial Revolution, these texts often engage local environmental issues and questions of environmental ethics. As natural history began to intersect with the growing impulse toward regionalism, the two fields began to overlap. These texts demonstrate this intersection between natural history and environmental writing, as their narrative structures and highly stylized prose bring the literary aspect of natural history writing to the forefront. Through these texts, readers gain a better understanding not only of how natural history was adapted to the needs of the 20th century, but also of the fundamental role of natural history writing in environmental action campaigns.
  572.  
  573. Primary Sources
  574.  
  575. Demonstrating modern applications of natural history writing, these texts employ natural history in a literary fashion and often send an environmentalist message. While works such as Dillard 2007 celebrate a picturesque local environment, other texts display a similar impulse for less hospitable regions. Abbey 1990 and Austin 1997, for instance, convey a powerful attachment to the desert, an environment that is often ignored in earlier natural history texts, while Lopez 2001 expresses the beauty of the remote Arctic and Matthiessen 2008 explores the mountains of Nepal. Quammen 1996, on the other hand, offers a scientific investigation of place through use of the ecological theory of island biogeography. These attachments to local places create a concern with environmental ethics in many of these texts. While works such as Leopold 2001 utilize a close attachment to a place in order to express a desire to protect that place, Snyder 1990 uses specific attitudes toward the environment in order to advocate for political change. This intersection of regionalism and activism is prominent in Williams 1992, which advocates for political action in response to local environmental degradation.
  576.  
  577. Abbey, Edward. 1990. Desert solitaire. New York: Simon & Schuster.
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  579. Widely recognized as among the most powerful natural history accounts of desert regions. Discussing both the natural landscape and the cultural environment of southeastern Utah, Abbey blends description and humor with artistic reflection to highlight the continual degradation of that place and to advocate for its protection. First published in 1968.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Austin, Mary. 1997. The land of little rain. New York: Penguin.
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  583. A widely known natural history of the American Southwest. Offers detailed descriptions of the flora and fauna between the high Sierra Nevada and the Mojave Desert, and also details the cultural traditions of Native Americans who live sustainably in that region. Originally published in 1903.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Dillard, Annie. 2007. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: Harper Perennial.
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  587. Chronicles Dillard’s journey into Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and her residence near Tinker Creek. Providing accurate descriptions of the natural world and infusing those descriptions with lyrical language, this book is an important modern example of literary natural history. Originally published in 1974.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Leopold, Aldo. 2001. A Sand County almanac: With essays on conservation. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  591. First published in 1949, A Sand County Almanac is among the best known American natural history books of the 20th century. Follows Leopold’s daily life in rural Wisconsin as he chronicles his observations and records a sense of environmental loss that inspires protection of that place. Influential for its critique of a purely human-centered environmental ethics.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Lopez, Barry. 2001. Arctic dreams: Imagination and desire in a northern landscape. New York: Vintage.
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  595. A National Book Award–winning natural history of the Far North. Considers historical narratives of the region alongside the author’s observations made during fifteen trips to the Arctic. By recording his impressions of the landscape and its human and nonhuman inhabitants, Lopez highlights the importance of this place in our cultural imagination. Originally published in 1986.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Matthiessen, Peter. 2008. The snow leopard. New York: Penguin.
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  599. Chronicles Matthiessen’s 1973 travels into the mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep, complete a spiritual quest, and glimpse the rare snow leopard. This natural history text fuses the reality of physical travel with the personal revelations that his explorations inspire.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Quammen, David. 1996. The song of the dodo: Island biogeography in an age of extinctions. New York: Scribner.
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  603. Utilizes the theory of island biogeography to present a wide-ranging natural history of animals, their habitats, and the scientists who study them.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Snyder, Gary. 1990. The practice of the wild. San Francisco: North Point.
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  607. A collection of nine essays in which Snyder considers the relationship between humans and the natural world and calls for a stronger connection to local places. This book fuses objective description with literary reflections and is an important text in the contemporary natural history tradition.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Williams, Terry Tempest. 1992. Refuge: An unnatural history of family and place. New York: Vintage.
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  611. An example of contemporary trends in natural history. Williams reflects on her mother’s terminal cancer, probably the product of radioactive fallout from nuclear testing, and on the rise of the Great Salt Lake to record levels, threatening local wildlife. A lyrical blending of natural history and personal loss.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Rachel Carson
  614.  
  615. Often considered the inspiration for the contemporary environmental movement, Carson 2002, her best-known work, was first published in 1962, when it outlined the problems with the indiscriminate use of insecticides in the 1960s and ultimately called for the banning of these harmful chemicals. While this was her most effective environmental campaign, Carson 2007 (her first book, originally published in 1941), although not as well-received at the time of its publication, represents natural history that is infused with a literary sensibility in order to make scientific data entertaining. Carson’s ability to make the marine environment accessible to the general reader through literary natural history allowed Carson 2003 to offer a study of marine ecology and Carson 1998 to detail coastal ecosystems while still receiving a positive popular reception.
  616.  
  617. Carson, Rachel. 1998. The edge of the sea. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
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  619. First published in 1955, this book is a natural history of coastal regions and the animals that live within them. Explores rocky shores, coral reefs, and sandy beaches and expresses observations of these ecosystems in a highly literary manner.
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  621. Carson, Rachel. 2002. Silent spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
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  623. Often considered the inspiration for the modern environmental movement and the impetus for the banning of DDT in the 1960s, this book conveys the negative effects of insecticides and other common poisons on the planet and its inhabitants. A monumental work of 20th-century natural history writing, originally published in 1962.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Carson, Rachel. 2003. The sea around us. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  627. A best-selling natural history of the marine environment. This narrative describes the sea, from the formation of the oceans forward in time, combining scientific information with creative writing. Originally published in 1951.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Carson, Rachel. 2007. Under the sea wind. New York: Penguin.
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  631. Carson’s first book, a widely read account of the delicate ecological balance in both the open sea and the tidal zone. Describes the marine environment in narrative form, often using scientific names while also placing sea creatures into an imaginative story. First published in 1941.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Secondary Sources
  634.  
  635. Combining concepts of natural history with contemporary political movements, texts such as Buell 2001 and Heise 2008 expand the boundaries of natural history from a purely rural localism to more diverse global contexts. As these texts begin to include urban environments and global influences, the intersection between nature and culture becomes more apparent. Marx 2000 and Scheese 2002, for instance, consider the influence of technology on human relationships with nature, while Elder 1996 specifically addresses the role of science in literary natural history. This overlap between science and art raises questions that are articulated in Love 2003 about the limits of scientific terminology and data in literature. Haraway 2007 pushes this scientific debate further by arguing that our culture has moved into a posthuman age. While these concerns about the appropriation of scientific terms problematize 20th-century natural history, Tredinnick 2005 maintains that literary natural history effectively articulates the connection between a writer and his or her environment.
  636.  
  637. Buell, Lawrence. 2001. Writing for an endangered world: Literature, culture, and environment in the U.S. and beyond. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
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  639. Among the first studies of natural history writing to include urban areas, this book helped lay the foundation for contemporary ideas about natural history. Reclaims nature outside of wilderness in order to give it broader relevance to contemporary audiences.
  640. Find this resource:
  641. Elder, John. 1996. Imagining the Earth: Poetry and the vision of nature. Athens, GA: Univ. of Georgia Press.
  642. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  643. Examines how the work of ecopoets from Gary Snyder to Denise Levertov intermingle nature and culture in their work. Specifically addressing the role of science in poetry, this book considers how poetry can function as natural history without diluting its attention to language and form.
  644. Find this resource:
  645. Haraway, Donna J. 2007. When species meet. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
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  647. A natural history account of how human beings interact with other animals, particularly domestic animals, and how those relationships contribute to the development of a post-humanist perspective.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Heise, Ursula K. 2008. Sense of place and sense of planet: The environmental imagination of the global. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  650. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335637.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  651. Analyzes the relationship between local sensibilities and conceptions of global community. Heise considers the tension between global environmental responsibility and locally based action. This book is important to natural history because it critiques the usefulness of this tradition in today’s global society.
  652. Find this resource:
  653. Love, Glen. 2003. Practical ecocriticism: Literature, biology, and the environment. Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press.
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  655. Among the first books to explicitly connect environmental literary studies with scientific discourse. Love considers the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge and warns against misappropriation of scientific terminology by scholars in the humanities. Contends with contemporary critiques of natural history by advocating for a truly interdisciplinary approach.
  656. Find this resource:
  657. Marx, Leo. 2000. The machine in the garden: Technology and the pastoral ideal in America. 2d ed. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  659. First published in 1964, this text examines the relationship between technology and culture in America since the 19th century. An important study of literary natural history, Marx’s book considers various works in order to demonstrate the distinction between the pastoral and the progressive, particularly in the context of the garden.
  660. Find this resource:
  661. Scheese, Don. 2002. Nature writing: The pastoral impulse in America. New York: Routledge.
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  663. Traces pastoralism from natural history observations in early writing by Dante and Aristotle to the work of contemporary writers. Arguing that industrialization is the impetus for modern nature writing, Scheese uses personal experience to examine the relationship between humans and the physical environment. Originally published in 1995.
  664. Find this resource:
  665. Tredinnick, Mark. 2005. The land’s wild music: Encounters with Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Terry Tempest Williams, and James Galvin. San Antonio, TX: Trinity Univ. Press.
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  667. Examines the connection between writers and their environments. By focusing on Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Terry Tempest Williams, and James Galvin, this book analyzes how various environments become integrated into a writer’s text. An important demonstration of how and why natural history is relevant to contemporary American literature.
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