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The Platypus and the Mermaid and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination
This book captures the fervor of the Victorian age for classifying and categorizing every new specimen, plant or animal, that British explorers and soldiers and sailors brought home. As she depicts a whole complex of competing groups deploying rival schemes and nomenclatures, Harriet Ritvo shows us a society drawing and redrawing its own boundaries and ultimately identifying itself. A thoroughly absorbing account of taxonomy - as zoological classification and as anthropological study - The Platypus and the Mermaid offers a new perspective on the constantly shifting, ever suggestive interactions of scientific lore, cultural ideas, and the popular imagination.
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First published January 1, 1997
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About the author
Harriet Ritvo
21 books5 followersHarriet Ritvo is an American historian who specializes in British history, particularly environmental history and the history of natural history.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 26, 2019
The Platypus and the Mermaid is an academic book about the history of scientific classification, with a particular focus, as the title suggests, on the anomalies with which that system had to deal, whether real (the platypus) or imaginary (the mermaid).
Chapter 1: The Point of Order gives a useful overview of the problems faced by the development of scientific classification. The colonization of Australia in the late eighteenth century, for instance, turned up numerous animals, such as the kangaroo and the platypus, that defied all the prevailing categories. Although the Swedish scientist Linnaeus is seen as the main inventor of scientific classification, Ritvo complicates this picture by showing the heterogeneous ways in which it actually came into being. Certainly Linnaeus was an important figure but, as a Swede, British naturalists regarded him with suspicion, for instance. While the classification system was more rational and ordered than the medieval bestiary, the biggest question tended to be which standard to adopt - would it be based on sexual reproduction, domesticity/wildness, or some other measure? As these problems were worked out, the two persistent ideas that remained from Linnaeus were the notion of an "order of nature" and the Latin scientific naming system still used today.
Chapter 2: Flesh Made Word examines the importance of language in shaping the classification system. Scientific names needed to be standardized, for instance, to ensure that the same animal was being talked about - the use of the term "nondescript" specifically meant something unclassified. Names were also powerful in establishing such notions as "breeds," for instance, which were inherently artificial, but persisted because of the established nomenclature.
Chapter 3: Barring the Cross looks at the question of hybrids and cross-breeding. The prevailing cultural preferences for purity tended to dominate here, even though empirically this led to in-breeding and health problems. Ritvo examines in depth the notion of telegony - the idea that a child's physique could be influenced by its mother's previous sexual partners - an idea in which even Darwin believed. Ritvo's implication throughout the book that classification reflects social values comes to the far in the latter parts of this chapter, when she examines their consequences for human eugenics.
Chapter 4: Out of Bounds looks at the extreme challenges to classification. In the human context, this refers to things like giants, dwarfs, conjoined twins, and hermaphrodites, all of which came under intense scrutiny during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ritvo also looks at mythological creatures in this chapter, primarily the unicorn, the mermaid, and the sea monster. All of these various categories provides both a challenge and an affirmation of the scientific system of classification.
Chapter 5: Matters of Taste shows how classification also reflected human tastes, especially when it came to food. Ritvo looks at three main human groups here: hunters (who had the upper-class privilege of going after game), farmers (who tended to designate as "vermin" those animals that threatened their livelihood), and pet owners (who had sentimental attachments to some animals, but not others). Ritvo notes again how British national culture plays a part in these classifications. The British had an astonishing appetite for beef (and mutton), believing that it provided strength, even as vegetarianism became a mainstream movement. These prejudices also shaped which animals were eaten or spared: the British could not abide horsemeat, for instance, even though it was eaten on the continent. Carnivores were usually seen as unfit for consumption. For some reason, Ritvo although provides a useful and amusing introduction to her book, there is no conclusion. It just stops, rather abruptly, at the end of Chapter 5.
The Platypus and the Mermaid is a superb piece of scholarship. Meticulously researched and clearly written, Ritvo makes all that academic heavy lifting look easy. If you pay attention, you will also notice a very dry, ironic sense of humor running through her prose that I greatly appreciated. This book is not for everyone, admittedly, but if you are interested in this topic it is an excellent meditation on the evolution and complications of the scientific classification system.
Chapter 1: The Point of Order gives a useful overview of the problems faced by the development of scientific classification. The colonization of Australia in the late eighteenth century, for instance, turned up numerous animals, such as the kangaroo and the platypus, that defied all the prevailing categories. Although the Swedish scientist Linnaeus is seen as the main inventor of scientific classification, Ritvo complicates this picture by showing the heterogeneous ways in which it actually came into being. Certainly Linnaeus was an important figure but, as a Swede, British naturalists regarded him with suspicion, for instance. While the classification system was more rational and ordered than the medieval bestiary, the biggest question tended to be which standard to adopt - would it be based on sexual reproduction, domesticity/wildness, or some other measure? As these problems were worked out, the two persistent ideas that remained from Linnaeus were the notion of an "order of nature" and the Latin scientific naming system still used today.
Chapter 2: Flesh Made Word examines the importance of language in shaping the classification system. Scientific names needed to be standardized, for instance, to ensure that the same animal was being talked about - the use of the term "nondescript" specifically meant something unclassified. Names were also powerful in establishing such notions as "breeds," for instance, which were inherently artificial, but persisted because of the established nomenclature.
Chapter 3: Barring the Cross looks at the question of hybrids and cross-breeding. The prevailing cultural preferences for purity tended to dominate here, even though empirically this led to in-breeding and health problems. Ritvo examines in depth the notion of telegony - the idea that a child's physique could be influenced by its mother's previous sexual partners - an idea in which even Darwin believed. Ritvo's implication throughout the book that classification reflects social values comes to the far in the latter parts of this chapter, when she examines their consequences for human eugenics.
Chapter 4: Out of Bounds looks at the extreme challenges to classification. In the human context, this refers to things like giants, dwarfs, conjoined twins, and hermaphrodites, all of which came under intense scrutiny during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ritvo also looks at mythological creatures in this chapter, primarily the unicorn, the mermaid, and the sea monster. All of these various categories provides both a challenge and an affirmation of the scientific system of classification.
Chapter 5: Matters of Taste shows how classification also reflected human tastes, especially when it came to food. Ritvo looks at three main human groups here: hunters (who had the upper-class privilege of going after game), farmers (who tended to designate as "vermin" those animals that threatened their livelihood), and pet owners (who had sentimental attachments to some animals, but not others). Ritvo notes again how British national culture plays a part in these classifications. The British had an astonishing appetite for beef (and mutton), believing that it provided strength, even as vegetarianism became a mainstream movement. These prejudices also shaped which animals were eaten or spared: the British could not abide horsemeat, for instance, even though it was eaten on the continent. Carnivores were usually seen as unfit for consumption. For some reason, Ritvo although provides a useful and amusing introduction to her book, there is no conclusion. It just stops, rather abruptly, at the end of Chapter 5.
The Platypus and the Mermaid is a superb piece of scholarship. Meticulously researched and clearly written, Ritvo makes all that academic heavy lifting look easy. If you pay attention, you will also notice a very dry, ironic sense of humor running through her prose that I greatly appreciated. This book is not for everyone, admittedly, but if you are interested in this topic it is an excellent meditation on the evolution and complications of the scientific classification system.
December 11, 2024
This is a book about the human need to classify and group both nonhuman animals and humans themselves. I found the first chapters about 17th and 18th century debates over classification in the animal kingdom to be quite interesting: these chapters remind us that however we choose to group, we are making a choice, because there are so many overlapping connections between different types of animals. I didn’t find the chapter on human ‘monsters’ to be as interesting, and the book was quite dry at times. Nonetheless, the chapters on the development of natural history are worth reading. (This is a 3.7 or 3.8 rounded up.)
August 22, 2017
Definitely not for the casual reader. If you have a deep and abiding interest in either Victorian culture or taxonomy, and preferably both, then this is the book for you. Much of it is unpleasant illuminating how science can be co-opted or manipulated by those who want to maintain power based on differences in race and gender. Some of it was unfamiliar to me, particularly the parts about differences delineated by non-scientists such as breeders and gourmets. ALl in all a reaaly interesting if somewhat dry work
October 29, 2024
An interesting historiography on taxonomy which turns dark at the end with eugenics. Well written.
January 11, 2009
Our attempts to organize the world -- real and discursive -- are amusing, nearly ridiculous, and always, always compelling. This is a fantastic account of 19th century natural-history and popular attempts.
February 9, 2010
Didn't hold my interest. Stopped reading.
June 6, 2011
I think this suffered from where we read it on the syllabus. Interesting incidents and personages; I'd have liked more theory. YMMV.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews