Letters of Sir Joseph Banks, The, a Selection, 1768-1820
Hardcover
Series: 20001114
Biographies GeneralLetters & EssaysSports General
ISBN13: 9781860942044
Publisher: Imperial College Press
Published: Nov 15 2000
Pages: 468
Weight: 2.07
Height: 1.00 Width: 6.69 Depth: 9.61
Language: English
Sir Joseph Banks was man of science, of affairs, and of letters. He circumnavigated the globe with Lieutenant James Cook on H.M.S. Endeavour, 1768-1771, taking with him a team of naturalists, illustrators and assistants at a personal cost of 10,000. Together they made unprecedented collections of flora and fauna in many of the places H.M.S. Endeavour visited. Banks also led the first British scientific expedition to Iceland in 1772. Later, he settled in London, and assembled an enormous library and herbarium at 32 Soho Square. His collections were remarkable both for their size and for the unique material from the Pacific they contained. In 1778, Banks was elected President of the Royal Society, a position he held for over 41 years -- the longest anyone has served in that capacity. As President he fostered enlightened relations between scientists across Europe throughout a period of conflict and turbulent change. He was also Special Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which flourished under his control, becoming greater than any other. Voyages of discovery were mounted with his help to explore new lands, to obtain and move plants from one part of the world to another, and to further British interests abroad. He was also an influential privy councillor, and an advisor to George III and successive governments.
Banks was at the scientific and social centre of Georgian life for more than five decades. As such he developed a global network of correspondence, using letters to further knowledge, and ultimately to shape events in the cause of empire. He suggested the possibility of establishing colonies on the east coast of Australia, and then he actively supported them for the remainder of his life. He has therefore been regarded by some as the 'Father of Australia'. Furthermore, in the Napoleonic Wars he acted to save the population of Iceland when its trade was seized by the British. His views could hardly be avoided on matters of botany or horticulture, drainage or agriculture, on coinage, exploration or science in general. Yet he was a warm, authoritative writer with a direct, flowing prose style. His letters make fascinating reading for their variety, as well as the insight into his public and private life they provide.
This selection is made from the remaining 6,000 letters Banks wrote, and will introduce many readers to a deeply impressive figure, who is rapidly being recognized as one of the great men of his age.
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Trump, Mary L.
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
