Coenraad Jacob Temminck and the Emergence of Systematics (1800–1850)

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Coenraad Jacob Temminck and the Emergence of Systematics (1800–1850) is the first study to examine in detail the life and work of Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778–1858), the Dutch naturalist who was the first director of ’s Rijks Museum van Natuurlijke Historie (National Museum of Natural History) in Leiden, The Netherlands. This study situates Temminck’s activities in the context of European natural history during the early to the mid-nineteenth century. Three issues which defined the era are discussed in more detail: the growing European colonial territories, the rise of scientific meritocracy, and the emergence of systematics as a discipline. Temminck’s biography elucidates how and why systematics developed, and why its status within the natural sciences has been a matter of discussion for more than a century.
Copyright Year:
2022
E-Book (PDF)
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-44149-1
Publication:
05 Oct 2021
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-41917-9
Publication:
07 Oct 2021
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Maria Eulàlia Gassó Miracle is a Collections Specialist at Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden. Her work focuses on the curation of Naturalis’ cultural heritage. She also conducts research on the history of nineteenth-century natural history and collections, with a particular interest in pre-Darwinian zoology.
"Maria Gassó Miracle’s volume fills in all the missing details about Temminck’s life and career, but it also looks at how the Linnaean system of nomenclature was developed into what we know as systematics today. […] a fascinating book […]."

---- Andrew C. Kitchener, in: Archives of Natural History, November 2022, Vol. 49, No. 2: pp. 432-33.
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Note on Quotations and Translations
Introduction
 1 Portraits of Coenraad Jacob Temminck
 2 On Dutch Natural History
 3 Summary of the Chapters
 4 A Word of Caution: On Definitions

part 1: Birds, Cabinets, and Museums


1 From Catalogs to Monographs
 1 Exotic Birds on Cupboards and Plates
 2 François Levaillant and Bernhard Meyer
 3 From Listing to Classifying
 4 Temminck’s Earliest Monographs

2 From Collector to Director
 1 Appointments and Politics
 2 The Direction of ’s Lands Kabinet
 3 Collections for the Universities
 4 Building Up a Network
 5 The Concept of a National Museum

3 National Museum, National Expeditions
 1 The Birth of ’s Rijks Museum van Natuurlijke Historie
 2 Temminck’s Directorate
 3 Colonial Nature
 4 A Worldwide Web of Collectors

4 A Place for Systematics
 1 The Museum’s Scientific Output
 2 Temminck’s Podium
 3 The Geography of Systematics

Part 2: Zoological Classification: 1800–1850


5 Patterns, Laws, and Types
 1 Geographical Patterns and the “Type” Concept
 2 Temminck’s Law versus Buffon’s Law
 3 On the Origin and Immutability of Species
 4 After Temminck’s Law

6 Systematics Wars
 1 Temminck’s Debates
 2 Nomenclatural Chaos
 3 Establishing Genera
 4 The Search for a Natural Classification System
 5 The ‘Parliamentary Practice’

7 Systematics and Natural History: 1800–1850
 1 Defining ‘Natural History’
 2 The Issue of Philosophical Arguments
 3 The Status of Anatomy and Physiology
 4 Systematics within Natural History

Conclusion: The Emergence of Systematics
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
All interested in the history of science and in the development of natural history and zoological systematics, and all interested in the history of European museums.
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Publisher:
Brill
Language:
English
Pages:
xiv, 328 pp., incl. 37 illustrations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004441491

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Koninklijke Brill B.V. 
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Leiden / The Netherlands
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