Peter Hanns Reill – författare

This 1996 collection examines the discovery of plants and peoples of the Pacific in the eighteenth century by European scientists and travellers. The contributors conceptualise the process of discovery, which involved active cultural solutions to problems of representation, rather than mere collection and passive depiction. These solutions both reflected and created visions of empire. Studies of the voyages of Banks and Cook investigate their mobilisation of resources. Other essays examine the economic and theological roots of Linnaeus's natural history, and the importance of the sexual system of classification in ideas of human nature and social order. Visions of Empire also tackles the cultural roots of botanical representations and the interpretations of encounters with other peoples. Its interdisciplinary approach maps out a more sophisticated understanding of representations of nature and society.

It has become increasingly clear in recent years that, for all their differences, the many varieties of thinking commonly grouped together under the rubric of "postmodernism" share at least one salient characteristic: they all depend upon a stereotyped account of the Enlightenment. Postmodernity requires a "modernity" to be repudiated and superseded, and the tenets of this modernity have invariably been identified with the so-called Enlightenment Project. This volume aims to explore critically the now conventional opposition between Enlightenment and Postmodernity and question some of the conclusions drawn from it.In so doing, the authors focus on three general areas. Part I, "Enlightenment or Postmodernity?", reflects on the way in which contemporary discussion characterizes the two movements as radical alternatives. Part II, "Critical Confrontations," provides a kind of archaeology of this opposition by charting a series of critical engagements by those who have affirmed or demeaned Enlightenment values in the twentieth century. Part III, "A Postmodern Enlightenment?", complicates the perceived dichotomy between Enlightenment and Postmodernity by pointing to the existence within the Enlightenment of elements frequently seen as characteristic of Postmodernity.The contributors are Lorraine Daston, Dena Goodman, David Hollinger, Lawrence E. Klein, Jonathan Knudsen, Michael Meranze, Richard Rorty, Hans Sluga, and Johnson Kent Wright.