Overview

Winner of the Frank Watson Prize in Scottish History, 2011 The relationship between science and civil society is essential to our understanding of cultural change during the Victorian era. Science was frequently packaged as an appropriate form of civic culture, inculcating virtues necessary for civic progress. In turn, civic culture was presented as an appropriate context for enabling and supporting scientific progress. Finnegan's study looks at the shifting nature of this process during the nineteenth century, using Scotland as the focus for his argument. Considerations of class, religion and gender are explored, illuminating changing social identities as public interest in science was allowed - even encouraged - beyond the environs of universities and elite metropolitan societies.

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9780822966357

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A fascinating and engaging read. --Victorians Institute Journal A valuable contribution to the histories and geographies of science. --H-Net Reviews Fascinating and instructive. --Archives of Natural History Gives us a rich understanding not only of where but also of how Victorian science was practised . . . deserves to be read by scholars of identity, cultural geography and, especially, nineteenth-century science. --British Society for the History of Science In his subtle exploration [of these groups and their practices] Finnegan both advances our understanding of the Victorian man of science and points toward a new kind of history of the scientific self. --Victorian Studies Should be on the shelves of anyone interested in nineteenth-century science in the British Isles. --Isis

Should be on the shelves of anyone interested in nineteenth-century science in the British Isles. --Isis In his subtle exploration [of these groups and their practices] Finnegan both advances our understanding of the Victorian man of science and points toward a new kind of history of the scientific self. --Victorian Studies Gives us a rich understanding not only of where but also of how Victorian science was practised . . . deserves to be read by scholars of identity, cultural geography and, especially, nineteenth-century science. --British Society for the History of Science Fascinating and instructive. --Archives of Natural History A valuable contribution to the histories and geographies of science. --H-Net Reviews A fascinating and engaging read. --Victorians Institute Journal

"A fascinating and engaging read.-- ""Victorians Institute Journal"" A valuable contribution to the histories and geographies of science.-- ""H-Net Reviews"" Fascinating and instructive.-- ""Archives of Natural History"" Gives us a rich understanding not only of where but also of how Victorian science was practised . . . deserves to be read by scholars of identity, cultural geography and, especially, nineteenth-century science.-- ""British Society for the History of Science"" Should be on the shelves of anyone interested in nineteenth-century science in the British Isles.-- ""Isis"""

Author Information

Diarmid Finnegan is senior lecturer in human geography at Queen’s University Belfast.

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