Nature's Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the WorldNature's Government is a daring attempt to juxtapose the histories of Britain, Western science, and imperialism. It shows how colonial expansion, from the age of Alexander the Great to the twentieth century, led to more complex kinds of knowledge. Science, and botany in particular, was fed by information culled from the exploration of the globe. At the same time science was useful to imperialism: it guided the exploitation of exotic environments and made conquest seem necessary, legitimate, and beneficial. Richard Drayton traces the history of this idea of "improvement" from its Christian agrarian origins in the sixteenth century to its inclusion in theories of enlightened despotism. It was as providers of legitimacy, as much as of universal knowledge, aesthetic perfection, and agricultural plenty, he argues, that botanic gardens became instruments of government, first in continental Europe and then, by the late eighteenth century, in Britain and the British Empire. At the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the rise of which throughout the nineteenth century is a central theme of this book, a pioneering scientific institution was added to a spectacular ornamental garden. At Kew, "improving" the world became a potent argument for both the patronage of science at home and Britain's prerogatives abroad. This book provides a portrait of how the ambitions of the Enlightenment shaped the great age of British power and how empire changed the British experience and the modern world. |
Contents
The World in a Garden | 3 |
The Gathering in of Creation | 4 |
The Physic Garden in the Renaissance | 9 |
Discovering the Order of Providence | 14 |
The Climax of Botany or the Second Loss of Eden | 19 |
Plants and Power | 26 |
Imperial Magic | 27 |
The Ornaments of Solomon | 32 |
The Royal Gardens Committee of 1838 | 153 |
Botany versus Horticulture | 159 |
The Strange Victory of Sir William Hooker | 165 |
The Professionals and the Empire The Hookers at Kew 184173 | 170 |
The Predicament of Science in an Age of Reform | 172 |
Recreating the Empire | 180 |
Industry and Empire Collections and Careers | 192 |
Surveys and the Colonial Floras | 201 |
A Royal Garden at Richmond | 37 |
The Useful Garden Agriculture and the Science of Government | 50 |
Corn and Periphery | 55 |
Improving Gentlemen and the First British Empire | 59 |
The Science of the Monarchical State | 67 |
A Prospect on Banks at Kew 17721820 | 78 |
Nature and Empire | 83 |
Improving the British Empire Sir Joseph Banks and Kew 17831820 | 85 |
The Making of Sir Joseph Banks | 94 |
Science and the Second British Empire | 106 |
Kew Empire and the Sons of Science | 124 |
From Royal to Public The Reform of Kew 182041 | 129 |
The Decline of Kew and the Profession of Botany | 135 |
Whiggery and Botany | 148 |
The Cinchona Initiative | 206 |
A New Identity Crystallizes | 211 |
Science and the New Imperialism | 220 |
The Government of Nature | 221 |
Exploitation and Conservation | 229 |
The New Botany and Colonial Agriculture | 238 |
Economic Botany and Free Trade Empire 187695 | 248 |
The Green Edge of Constructive Imperialism 18951903 | 255 |
The Climax of a Scientific Empire | 262 |
Empire and Development | 267 |
At the Crossroads | 269 |
Notes | 275 |
327 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Admiralty Africa agrarian Aiton American Annals of Agriculture appointed argued Ayrton Bedford Bentham Board botanists Britain British Empire British Museum Buffon Cambridge centre century Ceylon Chamberlain cinchona collection Colonial Office commerce contemporaries Crown cultural Darwin Dawson Turner Duke Dutch East India Company economic botany England English Europe European example expansion Flora France French Gardens at Kew George George III herbarium Hooker to Turner Horticultural Hortus Huxley ibid idem imperial improvement J.D. Hooker Jardin du Roi John Lindley Joseph Hooker June Kew Gardens Kew's land Lindley Linnaeus London Lord John Russell Natural History ornamental Oxford Paris patronage Physiocratic Pitt Plantarum planters plants political Prince reform Report responsibility Royal Botanic Gardens Royal Gardens Royal Society Russell scientific scientists Sinclair Sir Joseph Banks Sir William Hooker sugar survey T.H. Huxley Thiselton-Dyer trade Treasury urged Victorian West Indian West Indies Whig William Jackson Hooker wrote