Main entry:

Daston, Lorraine, 1951- author.

Title & Author:

Wonders and the order of nature, 1150-1750 / Lorraine Daston, Katharine Park.

Publication:

New York : Zone Books, 1998
Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England : Distributed by the MIT Press, [1998]
©1998

Description:

511 pages : illustrations, photographs ; 29 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (on pages 373-497) and an index (on pages 499-511).
Contents -- Preface -- Introduction : At the limit -- I. The topography of wonder -- Marvels on the margins -- Wonders of creation -- Prodigious individuals and marvelous kinds -- Wonder and belief -- II. The properties of things -- Collecting wonders -- Artificial marvels -- Wonders at Court -- III. Wonder among the philosophers -- The philosophers against wonder -- Curiosity and the preternatural -- Making wonders cease -- IV. Marvelous particulars -- Marvelous therapeutics -- Preternatural history -- Preternatural philosophy -- V. Monsters : a case study -- Horror : monsters as prodigies -- Pleasure : monsters as sport -- Repugnance : monsters as errors -- VI. Strange facts -- Baconian reforms -- Strange facts in learned societies -- The sociability of strange facts -- The credibility of strange facts -- VII. Wonders of art, wonders of nature -- Art and nurture opposed -- The wonders of art and nature displayed -- The wonders of art and nature conjoined -- Nature as artist, nature as art -- VIII. The passions of inquiry -- Ravening curiosity -- Wonder and curiosity allied -- Gawking wonder -- IX. The enlightenment and the anti-marvelous -- The unholy trinity : enthusiasm, superstition, imagination -- Vulgarity and the love of the marvelous -- Nature's decorum -- The wistful counter-enlightenment -- Epilogue -- Photo credits -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

Summary:

"Wonders and the Order of Nature is about the ways in which European naturalists from the High Middle Ages through the Enlightenment used wonder and wonders, the passion and its objects, to envision themselves and the natural world. Monsters, gems that shone in the dark, petrifying springs, celestial apparitions - these were the marvels that adorned romances, puzzled philosophers, lured collectors, and frightened the devout. Drawing on the histories of art, science, philosophy, and literature, Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park explore and explain how wonder and wonders fortified princely power, rewove the texture of scientific experience, and shaped the sensibility of intellectuals. This is a history of the passions of inquiry, of how wonder sometimes inflamed, sometimes dampened curiosity about nature’s best-kept secrets. Refracted through the prism of wonders, the order of nature splinters into a spectrum of orders, a tour of possible worlds. Wonders and the Order of Nature was awarded the 1999 Pfizer Prize by the History of Science Society and the 1999 Roland H. Bainton Prize for History and Theology by the Sixteenth Century Conference." -- back cover

Resources:
Table of contents
Electronic access restricted; authentication may be required:
Electronic access restricted; authentication may be required:

ISBN:

0942299906
9780942299908
0942299914
9780942299915
(paperback)
0642299914

Subject:

Science, Medieval.
Science History 18th century.
Science Philosophy History.
Natural History history
Science history
History, Medieval
Sciences médiévales.
Sciences Histoire 18e siècle.
Science
Science Philosophy
Naturwissenschaften
Philosophie
Kultur
Wunderglaube
Natur
Wunder
Wonderen.
Milieu.
Natuurwetenschappen.
Curiosities and wonders History
Errors, Scientific History
Natural history Europe Pre-Linnean works
Science History 16th century
Science History 17th century

Form/genre:

History

Added entries:

Park, Katharine, 1950- author.
MIT Press, distributor.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 212056
Call No.: Q124.97 .D38 1998
Status: Available