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Book Cover
E-book
Author Keller, Vera

Title The Interlopers Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge
Published Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023

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Description 1 online resource (369 p.)
Contents Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 The Political Economy of Projects -- 2 Cast of Characters -- 3 "Projectors are commonly the best Naturalists": Knowledge Practices -- 4 Statecraft: "Swimming between two Waters" in Global Policy -- 5 Transplanters of Empire: Forcing Nature and Labor -- 6 Active Knowledge: A Turn against the Liberal Arts -- 7 Unlimited Invention -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y
Summary "A reframing of how scientific knowledge was produced in the early modern world. Many accounts of the scientific revolution portray it as a time when scientists disciplined knowledge by first disciplining their own behavior. According to these views, scientists such as Francis Bacon produced certain knowledge by pacifying their emotions and concentrating on method. In The Interlopers, Vera Keller rejects this emphasis on discipline and instead argues that what distinguished early modernity was a navigation away from restraint and toward the violent blending of knowledge from across society and around the globe. Keller follows early seventeenth-century English "projectors" as they traversed the world, pursuing outrageous entrepreneurial schemes along the way. These interlopers were developing a different culture of knowledge, one that aimed to take advantage of the disorder created by the rise of science and technological advances. They sought to deploy the first submarine in the Indian Ocean, raise silkworms in Virginia, and establish the English slave trade. These projectors developed a culture of extreme risk-taking, uniting global capitalism with martial values of violent conquest. They saw the world as a riskscape of empty spaces, disposable people, and unlimited resources. By analyzing the disasters-as well as a few successes-of the interlopers she studies, Keller offers a new interpretation of the nature of early modern knowledge itself. While many influential accounts of the period characterize European modernity as a disciplining or civilizing process, The Interlopers argues that early modernity instead entailed a great undisciplining that entangled capitalism, colonialism, and science"-- Provided by publisher
"According to a standard, long-running account of the rise of science, the "scientific revolution" brought about by genius figures like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton was a revolution in thought. It was the result of a disciplining of thought that opened the mind to the order and patterns in nature. Much of the scholarly pushback against this story focuses on expanding the cast of characters beyond the geniuses to include artisans, craftsmen, medical practitioners, sailors, tradesmen and other non-elites who contributed to the development of the scientific mindset. The author rejects the emphasis on cognitive orderliness and discipline that the standard account and its detractors share"-- Provided by publisher
Notes Description based upon print version of record
Subject Imperialism and science -- Great Britain
Knowledge, Theory of -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century
Technology -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century
Science -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century
SCIENCE / History.
HISTORY / Social History.
Technology.
Science.
Knowledge, Theory of.
Intellectual life.
Imperialism and science.
SUBJECT Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85056789
Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 17th century. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85056854
Subject Great Britain.
Genre/Form History.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 142144593X
9781421445939