Topham, J.R. (2002) Encyclopaedic visions: scientific dictionaries and enlightenment culture [Review Symposium]. Metascience, 11. pp. 154-176. ISSN 1467-9981
Abstract
In the preface to this impressive book, Richard Yeo quotes David Brewster’s words to the co-editor of his eighteen-volume Edinburgh Encyclopaedia as a warning to himself to make his task manageable. In so doing, he restricts his primary purpose to revealing and analysing “the assumptions behind the encyclopaedic project” and to considering “how these influenced coverage and format”. What he explicitly eschews — with eyes no doubt to Robert Darnton’s publishing history of the Encyclopédie — is the task of giving a “publishing history or a study of readership”. Yeo nevertheless expresses a hope that his study will be a useful contribution to the “significant intersection between history of science and the history of the book” (p. xvi). That hope is well founded, and he makes the case repeatedly for the importance of taking seriously the practices of authorship, readership, and publishing. Yet there are significant respects in which his primary purpose would have been more fully accomplished had he paid more attention to these issues.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. This is a section from a Review Symposium on Encyclopaedic visions: scientific cictionaries and enlightenment culture. Additional authors in the complete symposium are Richard Yeo, David Miller and Marina Frasca-Spada. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds) > Division of the History and Philosophy of Science (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Leeds Philosophy Department |
Date Deposited: | 11 Oct 2007 15:52 |
Last Modified: | 08 Feb 2013 16:55 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer |
Refereed: | No |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:3323 |