Utopia鈥檚 Garden by Emma Spary, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
拢44.50, ISBN 0226768627
WHAT is natural history for? It depends on who鈥檚 asking, says Emma Spary in
Utopia鈥檚 Garden. Anyone who鈥檚 had to justify their own scientific work to
sceptical politicians will appreciate her answer. And there can be few more
sharply defined examples than these from revolutionary France. A senior
researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin,
Spary examines the changes in the nascent discipline of natural history in
response to the turbulent change from royalist regime to a republic. Until the
French Revolution in 1789, the King鈥檚 Garden was dedicated, roughly speaking, to
a courtly exchange of plant specimens that demonstrated the glory of God鈥檚
Creation, His King and His Empire. Within weeks of the revolution, its senior
personnel had formed a citizens鈥� collective and dedicated their Museum of
Natural History to the improvement of the people鈥檚 agriculture and the
elucidation and perfection of the natural order. Several thrilling lives cry out
for a biographer to let them out of this understated volume. But Spary鈥檚 point
is to consider not the individuals but the network of researchers, and the way
they adroitly repositioned their work to survive the hurricane of change. Not a
gripping read, but food for fascinating further thought. Historians of France,
botanists, naturalists, administrative in-fighters and sociologists will all
find tools and lessons here, which is probably also the point.