The book describes the innovations that enabled botany, in the Eighteenth century, to emerge as an independent science, independent from medicine and herbalism. This encompassed the development of a reliable system for plant classification and the invention of a nomenclature that could be universally applied and understood. The key that enabled Linnaeus to devise his classification system was the discovery of the sexuality of plants. The book, which is intended for the educated general reader, proceeds to illustrate how many aspects of French life were permeated by this revolution in botany between about 1760 to 1815, a botanophilia sometimes inflated into botanomania. The reader should emerge with a clearer understanding of what the Enlightenment actually was in contrast to some popular second-hand ideas today.

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Authors and Affiliations

University of Wyoming, Laramie, USA

Rogel L. Williams

Bibliographic Information

Book Title: Botanophilia in Eighteenth-Century France
Book Subtitle: The Spirit of the Enlightenment
Authors: Rogel L. Williams
Series Title: International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9849-1
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2001
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-7923-6886-1Published: 31 October 2001
Softcover ISBN: 978-90-481-5678-8Published: 07 December 2010
eBook ISBN: 978-94-015-9849-1Published: 09 March 2013
Series ISSN: 0066-6610
Series E-ISSN: 2215-0307
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: V, 197
Topics: History, general, History of Science, Plant Sciences, Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography, Climate Change, Fine Arts

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

Front Matter

Back Matter

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