Decoding Nature | British Knowledge-Making in the Age of Exploration

This is an in-person event only. There is no live stream.

(The talk will be followed by a book sale/signing and drinks reception in our historic library, where a paid bar will be available.)

In this talk Dr Edwin Rose discusses some of the content from his recent book Reading the World: British Practices of Natural History 1760-1820 (2025). Extending from the global circumnavigations commenced by James Cook to the exploration of Britain itself, this talk explores how information was collected, classified and organised before being used to compile printed books that commenced their own global journeys.

It uncovers the roles of numerous Indigenous informants in the process of making books, ranging from the Polynesian societies and individuals such as Tupaia who worked with Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander to refine botanical descriptions during Cook's first voyage to the Pacific to the Indigenous peoples in the Pacific northwest.

Drawing on collections held by the Linnean Society of London and several other institutions including the Natural History Museum, this talk shows how specimens were collected, descriptions and illustrations constructed before their transfer into letterpress and illustrations to form new books in an age of global empire and revolution.

Since May 2025 Edwin Rose has been a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow in the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science at the University of Leeds undertaking the project 'Darwinian Inheritance: Communication and Empire in the Making of a Scientific Dynasty'. Before this Edwin completed a PhD in 2021 in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge that looked at the various practices of natural history in late eighteenth century British empire.

Studies of the production, distribution, use and reception of scientific books have been central to Edwin's research, that ranges from imperial voyages to the South Pacific explored in two AHRC-funded projects 'Natural History in the Age of Revolutions' and 'Naming Species in the South Pacific,' both based in the Cambridge HPS department, to research on the institutionalisation of science at the British Museum and the University of Cambridge in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and more recently research on the Darwin family's approaches to producing and distributing information.

Edwin's most recent book is published earlier this year by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

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Concessions

Please buy the concession ticket if you are:

• 65 years of age, or over
• Under 26 years of age
• Currently in receipt of UK government benefit (including, but not limited to, Income Based Jobseeker's Allowance, Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and Housing Benefit, and Universal Credit).
• Currently in full-time education.

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This is an in-person event at the Linnean Society of London on Piccadilly, London, only.

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