{"id":1740,"date":"2009-01-14T08:36:47","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T08:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etherwave.wordpress.com\/?p=1740"},"modified":"2009-01-14T08:36:47","modified_gmt":"2009-01-14T08:36:47","slug":"book-review-worlds-before-adam-the-reconstruction-of-geohistory-in-the-age-of-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2009\/01\/14\/book-review-worlds-before-adam-the-reconstruction-of-geohistory-in-the-age-of-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Worlds Before Adam<\/span> (Chicago, 2008) by Martin J.S. Rudwick is the cumulative synthesis of a distinguished career and a <\/span>prolegomena<\/span> for the future efforts of historians. Worlds Before Adam <\/span>(WBA<\/em>) is a narrative of the “reconstruction…of an eventful geohistory, which is in fact congruent with what geologists in the twenty-first century accept as valid.\u201d <\/span>Rudwick’s<\/span> account begins with Baron Cuvier<\/a> and “culminates” in the formulation of glacial theory, which included the \u201cutterly unexpected inference of an exceptional and drastic Ice Age in the geologically recent past.\u201d This inference, more than any other, Rudwick argues, \u201cforced geologists to recognize the contingent character of geohistory as a whole\u201d (7.) (Page numbers throughout are to WBA<\/em>.) Rudwick notes that the narrative framework \u201cwill convey the strong sense of unity of purpose and scientific progress that participants experienced\u201d (8.) <\/span><\/p>\n

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The narrative presented in WBA<\/em> is a continuation of Rudwick\u2019s Bursting the Limits of Time<\/em>, which traced the \u201cgradual development of the practice of geohistory within the sciences of the earth.\u201d In the eighteenth century, Rudwick argued in Bursting the Limits of Time<\/em>, geohistory was \u201can infrequent and marginal feature of scientific research.\u201d Within a few decades, geohistory became the \u201cdefining element\u201d of the new science of \u201cgeology.\u201d\u00a0 Geology \u201cbecame the first truly historical natural science\u201d\u00a0 by \u201cdeliberately transposing methods and concepts from the human sciences of history itself.\u201d The hereto obscure, mysterious, and unfathomably deep prehistory of the earth in the late eighteenth century began to be conceived as \u201creliably knowable\u201d (2.) The scientific research described in Bursting the Limits of Time <\/em>demonstrated that it was \u201cfeasible in principle to gain reliable knowledge of the earth\u2019s history long before the earliest human records\u201d (6.) In the early nineteenth century, the concern of WBA,<\/em> geologists\u00a0 took the historical approach \u201cfor granted\u201d and were thus able to \u201creconstruct systematically and in detail what course geohistory had in fact taken\u2026.\u201d (6.) WBA <\/em>takes as its \u201cstarting point\u201d the sense among practitioners that the \u201cearth\u2019s deep or prehuman geohistory could in principle be reconstructed almost as reliably as\u2026the history of the ancient Greeks and Romans.\u201d While Bursting the Limits of Time<\/em> was given to the inquiry of the \u201csheer historical reality of the deep past, WBA<\/em> has as its focus both the geohistorical and the causal\u201d (3.) Geologists addressed the causal once they could take the historical reality of geohistory for granted. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Rudwick makes no claims to having written a comprehensive account of geohistory during the \u201cAge of Reform,\u201d nor does he wish to narrate every development in geological research. Thus, WBA <\/em>is self-consciously limited in its goals and conclusions. Rudwick\u2019s policy has been to \u201ctrace and analyze those topics that were either innovative<\/em> or exemplary<\/em>\u201d (italics throughout are his) and to argue that such topics represent a much larger body of research. As importantly, Rudwick wishes to rectify what he considers, rightly, I think, the \u201coverwhelmingly anglocentric and anglophone bias in much of the historiography of geology.\u201d Lastly, Rudwick\u2019s focus is once again on \u201cthe work and interactions of the leading scientific figures\u201d rather than \u201camateur naturalists or the general reading public.\u201d Rudwick defines a \u201cleading scientific figure\u201d as an individual undertaking work of \u201cinternational significance.\u201d The limiting of discussion to leading figures is \u201cwithout apology\u201d as the book is \u201can elitist account of certain aspects of the science of geology at one of its most innovative periods.\u201d Rudwick notes, correctly, that while \u201cstudies of popular science have their rightful place in scholarly work on the history of science\u2026they are no substitute for the study of the original scientific research that gave the popularizers most of their raw material.\u201d For Rudwick, \u201cthere is therefore a strong case for giving as much historical attention to elite science as to popular science, if not more.\u201d Such an account of the central narratives and of the basic arguments undertaken during this period of development and innovation in the earth sciences is an \u201curgent necessity\u201d since research in this area is \u201cstill quite patchy and often seriously defective\u201d (4.) <\/span><\/p>\n

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The body of the text gives due weight to the central arguments, rhetorics, and social and institutional contexts of the leading figures of English and French geohistory, with superb chapters and sections on Baron Cuvier, Charles Lyell<\/a>, and John Murchison, as well as lesser known figures as Prevost, Scrope, and von Buch, and Boue. The majority of the text may justifiably be read as an account situated in the history of ideas and the institutional contexts of those ideas. Of particular interest is Rudwick\u2019s superb description of Lyell\u2019s contribution to the reconstruction of geohistory and the reception of his ideas, which makes up the third as well as the beginning of the fourth section of the work . The conclusion returns to the historiographic and sociological problematics that most concern Rudwick. <\/span><\/p>\n

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The opening pages of the \u201cConcluding Unscientific Postscript\u201d attend to the role and constituency of the elite as well as to the role of professionals in the discipline of geology. Rudwick rightly points out that though his account narrates the claims of elites, their work (such as Lyell\u2019s) was \u201cmade possible by a gradient of lesser figures.\u201d Elites relied upon fossil hunters and aristocrats with cabinets, but Rudwick considers them distinct from both classes of “amateurs” since the claims of elites were \u201ctested most rigorously and effectively.\u201d\u00a0 Moreover,\u00a0 the production of elite geohistorical knowledge was an international enterprise. The internationalism of geology was made possible by improvements in transportation, the development of scientific institutions, and by the \u201crapidly expanding network of scientific periodicals, each of which was routinely reprinted, translated, or at least summarized the more important contents of others\u201d (536.) <\/span><\/p>\n

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While underscoring the international and institutional aspects of the formulation of geohistorical knowledge, Rudwick also underscores the epistemic, local character of geological labor and learning. All of the geologists surveyed in WBA<\/em> \u201cwere strongly oriented toward the particular, toward the importance of seeing particular specimens in museums and particular localities in the field with (their) own eyes<\/em>.\u201d Regarding the dynamic between prior opinion and observation, Rudwick notes, \u201cthe opinions of geologists were decisively changed by seeing crucial specimens and localities for themselves<\/em>.\u201d \u201cFieldwork\u201d was then not just \u201ca symbolic activity establishing a geologist\u2019s stamina or virility.\u201d The labor undertaken in the field was the site of the \u201cprimary evidence that demanded interpretation and understanding.\u201d The evidence of the field \u201coften ran counter to earlier expectations and required awkward or even painful adjustments of belief.\u201d For Rudwick, though geologists had preconceptions and saw their specimens in a specific light, they nonetheless were willing to change their minds. For Rudwick, the geohistorical episteme was malleable and subject to verification. (556.)<\/span><\/p>\n

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Rudwick is adamant that the roots of \u201cmodern,\u201d even twenty-first century geohistory, lie with the advances made by Lyell and Cuvier. The history of early nineteenth century\u00a0 geology is one of progress, according to Rudwick. Rudwick argues against the revisionist account of nineteenth century geology which sought to diminish Lyell contribution. Much to his own surprise,\u00a0 Lyell does indeed loom large in the reconstitution of geohistory. Rudwick found that \u201cin writing my narrative, and trying in a sense to relive the debates of the time, I found the sources compelling me to give Lyell much of his traditional prominence\u201d though on \u201cstrictly geological grounds rather than just those of his influence on Darwin\u2019s later evolutionary theorizing\u201d (560.) The narrative over the course of Bursting the Limits of Time<\/em> and WBA<\/em> should have the cumulative effect of demonstrating \u201chow the course and character of geohistory did become more reliably and fully knowledgeable\u201d (561.) This accumulation of knowledge and refinement of methodology occurred through the consolidation and transmission of knowledge rather than through antagonism of competing sides. Rudwick\u2019s account of the growth and production of geohistorical knowledge emphasizes the emergence \u201cof an interpretation not anticipated by either side: genuinely new<\/em> knowledge, to which both sides have contributed\u201d (563.)<\/span><\/p>\n

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Rudwick\u2019s account is a fine and welcome example of a narrative presentation that demonstrates a firm knowledge and understanding of the interaction of ideas and arguments with their contexts. Like many excellent works, Rudwick\u2019s narrative conceals a great deal of methodological and conceptual sophistication. Rather than burden his narrative with, for example, an account of the subjectivity of the fact, Rudwick brackets such a problematic to the conclusion. His discussion of the effect of the field, his rejection of a purely symbolic role for fieldwork, his stress on the international and local contributions to the production of geohistorical knowledge, and his emphasis on the development of knowledge through unexpected synthesis rather than through conflict, are all complex additions to our understanding of the sociology and historiography of the development of geohistory. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Worlds Before Adam (Chicago, 2008) by Martin J.S. Rudwick is the cumulative synthesis of a distinguished career and a prolegomena for the future efforts of historians. Worlds Before Adam (WBA) is a narrative of the “reconstruction…of an eventful geohistory, which is in fact congruent with what geologists in the twenty-first century accept as valid.\u201d Rudwick’s<\/p>\n

Continue Reading… Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform<\/span>Continue Reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[232,526,1034],"class_list":["post-1740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ewp-book-club","tag-charles-lyell","tag-georges-cuvier","tag-martin-rudwick"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}