Mary Terrall, UCLA professor of history, has published a new book, 'Catching Nature in the Act' (University of Chicago Press, 2014).
“Catching Nature in the Act” combines Terrall's two subjects of specialization — the history of science and early modern Europe. In the 18th Century, she writes, natural history meant different things to different people: diversion, obsession, medically or economically useful knowledge, spectacle, evidence for God’s providence and wisdom or even the foundation of all natural knowledge. Because natural history was pursued by such a variety of people around the globe, with practitioners sharing neither methods nor training, it has been characterized as a science of straightforward description, devoted to amassing observations as the raw material for classification and thus fundamentally distinct from experimental physical science. In “Catching Nature in the Act,” Terrall revises this picture, revealing how 18th-Century natural historians incorporated various experimental techniques and strategies into their practice.
For more information, visit UCLA History.
