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5 books match the query 'Withers, Charles W. J.'

cover of Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science

Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science

Edited by David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers

University of Chicago Press, 2011

In Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science, David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers gather essays that deftly navigate the spaces of science in this significant period and reveal how each is embedded in wider systems of meaning, authority, and identity. Chapters from a distinguished range of contributors explore the places of creation, the paths of knowledge transmission and reception, and the import of exchange networks at various scales. Studies range from the inspection of the places of London science, which show how different scientific sites operated different moral and epistemic economies, to the scrutiny of the ways in which the museum space of the Smithsonian Institution and the expansive space of the American West produced science and framed geographical understanding. This volume makes clear that the science of this era varied in its constitution and reputation in relation to place and personnel, in its nature by virtue of its different epistemic practices, in its audiences, and in the ways in which it was put to work.

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cover of Geography and Enlightenment

Geography and Enlightenment

Edited by David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers

University of Chicago Press, 1999

Geography and Enlightenment explores both the Enlightenment as a geographical phenomenon and the place of geography in the Enlightenment. From wide-ranging disciplinary and topical perspectives, contributors consider the many ways in which the world of the long eighteenth century was brought to view and shaped through map and text, exploration and argument, within and across spatial and intellectual borders.

The first set of chapters charts the intellectual and geographical contexts in which Enlightenment ideas began to form, including both the sites in which knowledge was created and discussed and the different means used to investigate the globe. Detailed explorations of maps created during this period show how these new ways of representing the world and its peoples influenced conceptions of the nature and progress of human societies, while studies of the travels of people and ideas reveal the influence of far-flung places on Enlightenment science and scientific credibility. The final set of chapters emphasizes the role of particular local contexts in Enlightenment thought.

Contributors are Michael T. Bravo, Paul Carter, Denis Cosgrove, Stephen Daniels, Matthew Edney, Anne Marie Claire Godlewska, Peter Gould, Michael Heffernan, David N. Livingstone, Dorinda Outram, Chris Philo, Roy Porter, Nicolaas Rupke, Susanne Seymour, Charles Watkins, and Charles W. J. Withers.
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cover of Geography and Revolution

Geography and Revolution

Edited by David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers

University of Chicago Press, 2005

A term with myriad associations, revolution is commonly understood in its intellectual, historical, and sociopolitical contexts. Until now, almost no attention has been paid to revolution and questions of geography. Geography and Revolution examines the ways that place and space matter in a variety of revolutionary situations.

David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers assemble a set of essays that are themselves revolutionary in uncovering not only the geography of revolutions but the role of geography in revolutions. Here, scientific revolutions—Copernican, Newtonian, and Darwinian—ordinarily thought of as placeless, are revealed to be rooted in specific sites and spaces. Technical revolutions—the advent of print, time-keeping, and photography—emerge as inventions that transformed the world's order without homogenizing it. Political revolutions—in France, England, Germany, and the United States—are notable for their debates on the nature of political institutions and national identity.

Gathering insight from geographers, historians, and historians of science, Geography and Revolution is an invitation to take the where as seriously as the who and the when in examining the nature, shape, and location of revolutions.
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cover of Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason

Placing the Enlightenment

Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason

Charles W. J. Withers

University of Chicago Press, 2007

The Enlightenment was the age in which the world became modern, challenging tradition in favor of reason, freedom, and critical inquiry. While many aspects of the Enlightenment have been rigorously scrutinized—its origins and motivations, its principal characters and defining features, its legacy and modern relevance—the geographical dimensions of the era have until now largely been ignored. Placing the Enlightenment contends that the Age of Reason was not only a period of pioneering geographical investigation but also an age with spatial dimensions to its content and concerns.

Investigating the role space and location played in the creation and reception of Enlightenment ideas, Charles W. J. Withers draws from the fields of art, science, history, geography, politics, and religion to explore the legacies of Enlightenment national identity, navigation, discovery, and knowledge. Ultimately, geography is revealed to be the source of much of the raw material from which philosophers fashioned theories of the human condition.

Lavishly illustrated and engagingly written, Placing the Enlightenment will interest Enlightenment specialists from across the disciplines as well as any scholar curious about the role geography has played in the making of the modern world.

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cover of Travels into Print: Exploration, Writing, and Publishing with John Murray, 1773-1859

Travels into Print

Exploration, Writing, and Publishing with John Murray, 1773-1859

Innes M. Keighren, Charles W. J. Withers, and Bill Bell

University of Chicago Press, 2015

In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, books of travel and exploration were much more than simply the printed experiences of intrepid authors. They were works of both artistry and industry—products of the complex, and often contested, relationships between authors and editors, publishers and printers. These books captivated the reading public and played a vital role in creating new geographical truths. In an age of global wonder and of expanding empires, there was no publisher more renowned for its travel books than the House of John Murray.

Drawing on detailed examination of the John Murray Archive of manuscripts, images, and the firm’s correspondence with its many authors—a list that included such illustrious explorers and scientists as Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell, and literary giants like Jane Austen, Lord Byron, and Sir Walter Scott—Travels into Print considers how journeys of exploration became published accounts and how travelers sought to demonstrate the faithfulness of their written testimony and to secure their personal credibility. This fascinating study in historical geography and book history takes modern readers on a journey into the nature of exploration, the production of authority in published travel narratives, and the creation of geographical authorship—a journey bound together by the unifying force of a world-leading publisher.
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