Self-styled adventurer, literary wit, philosopher, and statesman of science, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698-1759) stood at the center of Enlightenment science and culture. Offering an elegant
Natural history in the eighteenth century was at once diffuse, because it found its subject matter everywhere and anywhere, and intensely focused, because its practitioners amassed minute and seemingl
With contributions from historians, literary critics, and geographers, Curious Encounters uncovers a rich history of global voyaging, collecting, and scientific exploration in the long eighteenth cent
Eighteenth-century questions about the properties essential to life often explored the boundary between the physical world of the body and the immaterial world of the mind and soul. Locating materi
