Title The platypus and the mermaid, and other figments of the classifying imagination / Harriet Ritvo

Published Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1997

Copies

Location	Call no.	Vol.	Availability
MELB	590.12 Rit/Pat		DUE 14-05-24

Description xiv, 288 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm Summary This book captures the fervor of the Victorian age for classifying and categorizing every new specimen, plant or animal, that British explorers and soldiers and sailors brought home. As she depicts a whole complex of competing groups deploying rival schemes and nomenclatures, Harriet Ritvo shows us a society drawing and redrawing its own boundaries and ultimately identifying itself. A thoroughly absorbing account of taxonomy - as zoological classification and as anthropological study - The Platypus and the Mermaid offers a new perspective on the constantly shifting, ever suggestive interactions of scientific lore, cultural ideas, and the popular imagination Analysis Animals Great Britain History, 1801-1900 History, 1901-1945 Language and nomenclature Overseas item Popular culture Zoology Notes Includes index Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [215]-272) and index Subject Animals -- Great Britain -- 18th century -- Classification -- History. Animals -- Great Britain -- 19th century -- Classification -- History. Natural history -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century. Natural history -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century. Popular culture -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century. Animals -- Great Britain -- Classification -- History -- 18th century. Popular culture -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century. Animals -- Great Britain -- Classification -- History -- 19th century. LC no. 97000405 ISBN 0674673573 (alk. paper)

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