Encyclopaedic Visions

Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture

AvRichard Yeo

Inbunden, Engelska, 2001

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Beskrivning

The eighteenth-century English dictionaries of arts and sciences claimed to contain all knowledge that a person of education should possess. These early encyclopaedias responded to the explosion of information by reducing knowledge to essentials, stressing the need for a coherent account of the sciences, and for some time excluding biography and history. Richard Yeo places these scientific dictionaries in a rich cultural framework of debate that includes the arrangement of knowledge, the Republic of Letters, the Enlightenment public sphere, copyright issues and the specialisation of science. He discusses dilemmas involved in the quest for knowledge to be both organised and readily available, examining assumptions about the organisation, communication and control of knowledge in these works. Elegantly illustrated and accessibly written, Encyclopaedic Visions provides a major contribution to Enlightenment studies and the history of ideas in general.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2001-03-29
Mått:183 x 256 x 26 mm
Vikt:965 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:358
Förlag:Cambridge University Press
ISBN:9780521651912

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Mer om författaren

RICHARD YEO is Associate Professor (Reader) in the School of Humanities, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.

Recensioner i media

Review of the hardback: 'Richard Yeo's ambitious study of a significant segment of encyclopaedic development is a contribution to the highly political debate about the dissemination and control of knowledge … His book is both serious and fascinating. It catches exactly the mixture of intellectual excitement and commercial enterprise that in the Enlightment fuelled the search for the 'Best Book in the Universe''. Judith Hawley, The Guardian

Innehållsförteckning

Introduction: the encyclopaedic tradition; Part I: 1. Encyclopaedias in the Republic of Letters; 2. Scientific dictionaries and 'compleat' knowledge; 3. Containing knowledge; Part II: 4. From commonplace books to encyclopaedias; 5. 'The best book in the universe': Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia; 6. Communicating the arts and sciences; 7. The Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Scottish Enlightenment; Part III: 8. Copyright and public knowledge; 9. Why dedicate an encyclopaedia to a king?; 10. Editors and experts; Conclusion.