The Multifarious Mr. Banks

The Multifarious Mr. Banks
Author: Toby Musgrave
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2020-06-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0300223838

A fascinating life of Sir Joseph Banks which restores him to his proper place in history as a leading scientific figure of the English Enlightenment As official botanist on James Cook's first circumnavigation, the longest-serving president of the Royal Society, advisor to King George III, the "father of Australia," and the man who established Kew as the world's leading botanical garden, Sir Joseph Banks was integral to the English Enlightenment. Yet he has not received the recognition that his multifarious achievements deserve. In this engaging account, Toby Musgrave reveals the true extent of Banks's contributions to science and Britain. From an early age Banks pursued his passion for natural history through study and extensive travel, most famously on the HMS Endeavour. He went on to become a pivotal figure in the advancement of British scientific, economic, and colonial interests. With his enquiring, enterprising mind and extensive network of correspondents, Banks's reputation and influence were global. Drawing widely on Banks's writings, Musgrave sheds light on Banks's profound impact on British science and empire in an age of rapid advancement.

The Multifarious Mr. Banks

The Multifarious Mr. Banks
Author: Toby Musgrave
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2020-04-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0300252137

A fascinating life of Sir Joseph Banks which restores him to his proper place in history as a leading scientific figure of the English Enlightenment As official botanist on James Cook's first circumnavigation, the longest-serving president of the Royal Society, advisor to King George III, the "father of Australia," and the man who established Kew as the world's leading botanical garden, Sir Joseph Banks was integral to the English Enlightenment. Yet he has not received the recognition that his multifarious achievements deserve. In this engaging account, Toby Musgrave reveals the true extent of Banks’s contributions to science and Britain. From an early age Banks pursued his passion for natural history through study and extensive travel, most famously on the HMS Endeavour. He went on to become a pivotal figure in the advancement of British scientific, economic, and colonial interests. With his enquiring, enterprising mind and extensive network of correspondents, Banks’s reputation and influence were global. Drawing widely on Banks's writings, Musgrave sheds light on Banks’s profound impact on British science and empire in an age of rapid advancement.

Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks
Author: Patrick O'Brian
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 1997-12-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780226616285

One of our greatest writers about the sea has written an engrossing story of one of history's most legendary maritime explorers. Patrick O'Brian's biography of naturalist, explorer and co-founder of Australia, Joseph Banks, is narrative history at its finest. Published to rave reviews, it reveals Banks to be a man of enduring importance, and establishes itself as a classic of exploration. "It is in his description of that arduous three-year voyage [on the ship Endeavor] that Mr. O'Brian is at his most brilliant. . . . He makes us understand what life within this wooden world was like, with its 94 male souls, two dogs, a cat and a goat."—Linda Colley, New York Times "An absorbing, finely written overview, meant for the general reader, of a major figure in the history of natural science."—Frank Stewart, Los Angeles Times "[This book is] the definitive biography of an extraordinary subject."—Robert Taylor, Boston Globe "His skill at narrative and his extensive knowledge of the maritime history . . . give him a definite leg up in telling this . . . story."—Tom Clark, San Francisco Chronicle

Celebrity Culture and the Myth of Oceania in Britain

Celebrity Culture and the Myth of Oceania in Britain
Author: Ruth Scobie
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 1783274085

An intriguing case study on how popular images of Oceania, mediated through a developing culture of celebrity, contributed to the formation of British identity both domestically and as a nascent imperial power in the eighteenth century.

A New Plantation World

A New Plantation World
Author: Daniel Vivian
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2018-03
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 110841690X

Examines the creation of 'sporting plantations' in the South Carolina lowcountry during the first four decades of the twentieth century.

Kingdom of Ants

Kingdom of Ants
Author: Edward O. Wilson
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 111
Release: 2010-11-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0801899737

One of the earliest New World naturalists, José Celestino Mutis began his professional life as a physician in Spain and ended it as a scientist and natural philosopher in modern-day Colombia. Drawing on new translations of Mutis's nearly forgotten writings, this fascinating story of scientific adventure in eighteenth-century South America retrieves Mutis's contributions from obscurity. In 1760, the 28-year-old Mutis—newly appointed as the personal physician of the Viceroy of the New Kingdom of Granada—embarked on a 48-year exploration of the natural world of northern South America. His thirst for knowledge led Mutis to study the region's flora, become a professor of mathematics, construct the first astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere, and amass one of the largest scientific libraries in the world. He translated Newton's writings and penned essays about Copernicus; lectured extensively on astronomy, geography, and meteorology; and eventually became a priest. But, as two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Edward O. Wilson and Spanish natural history scholar José M. Gómez Durán reveal in this enjoyable and illustrative account, one of Mutis's most magnificent accomplishments involved ants. Acting at the urging of Carl Linnaeus—the father of taxonomy—shortly after he arrived in the New Kingdom of Granada, Mutis began studying the ants that swarmed everywhere. Though he lacked any entomological training, Mutis built his own classification for the species he found and named at a time when New World entomology was largely nonexistent. His unorthodox catalog of army ants, leafcutters, and other six-legged creatures found along the banks of the Magdalena provided a starting point for future study. Wilson and Durán weave a compelling, fast-paced story of ants on the march and the eighteenth-century scientist who followed them. A unique glance into the early world of science exploration, Kingdom of Ants is a delight to read and filled with intriguing information.

Mystery of Banking, The

Mystery of Banking, The
Author: Murray Newton Rothbard
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2008
Genre: Banks and banking
ISBN: 1610163842

Play with Me

Play with Me
Author: Grace Banks
Publisher: Laurence King Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-10-10
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9781786270825

Artists are increasingly using doll-like human effigies to explore politics and gender in contemporary culture, ranging from radical statement to sophisticated critique. Play with Me showcases this appeal of animating the inanimate as well as the multifarious and fascinating ideas that dolls bring to life—from the way female forms have been objectified to the way dolls generate ethical and political debate to the way they represent the self. Unlike sculptures, dolls offer a living and open construct of the human figure. And artists are reacting to this human form in a manner that's never been seen before, constituting an exciting new direction in contemporary art.

The Trouble with Africa

The Trouble with Africa
Author: Robert Calderisi
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2014-12-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1466887710

After years of frustration at the stifling atmosphere of political correctness surrounding discussions of Africa, long time World Bank official Robert Calderisi speaks out. He boldly reveals how most of Africa's misfortunes are self-imposed, and why the world must now deal differently with the continent. Here we learn that Africa has steadily lost markets by its own mismanagement, that even capitalist countries are anti-business, that African family values and fatalism are more destructive than tribalism, and that African leaders prey intentionally on Western guilt. Calderisi exposes the shortcomings of foreign aid and debt relief, and proposes his own radical solutions. Drawing on thirty years of first hand experience, The Trouble with Africa highlights issues which have been ignored by Africa's leaders but have worried ordinary Africans, diplomats, academics, business leaders, aid workers, volunteers, and missionaries for a long time. It ripples with stories which only someone who has talked directly to African farmers--and heads of state--could recount. Calderisi's aim is to move beyond the hand-wringing and finger-pointing which dominates most discussions of Africa. Instead, he suggests concrete steps which Africans and the world can take to liberate talent and enterprise on the continent.