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Introduction

Friendship, Science, and Chilean Nature

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The Sociable Sciences
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Abstract

Before the mapping of DNA and concerns about global warming, when the term “scientist” was freshly coined, adventurous souls braved calving glaciers, active volcanoes, grumpy pumas, and winds that mummified, propelled by curiosity about the natural world. These nineteenth-century precursors to Indiana Jones also stuffed animal skins, catalogued horned beetles, arranged museum displays, and published their specimen descriptions. Not solitary geniuses, these naturalists were intensely sociable: exploring together, exchanging irate letters, bartering over specimens or favors, and commiserating over family tragedies. This book is a history of that social world, of the friendships and feuds among a community of transnational naturalists who traveled to or were from Chile.

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Notes

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© 2013 Patience A. Schell

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Schell, P.A. (2013). Introduction. In: The Sociable Sciences. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286062_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286062_1

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-44913-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-28606-2

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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