Inventing the Earth Ideas on Landscape Development Since 1740

by Kennedy, Barbara

• ISBN13: 9781405101875
• ISBN10: 1405101873
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-01-13
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This book chronicles how successive generations of natural philosophers, geologists and geomorphologists have come to invent the view of the Earth over the past 250 years. Chronicles how successive generations of natural philosophers, geologists and geomorphologists have come to invent different views of the Earth over the last 250 years. Uses as its central viewpoint changing ideas about the significance of the action of rain and rivers on the Earth's surface. Shows how our contemporary "truths" have come to be accepted and exposes the frailty of even the most impeccably scientific visions of the Earth.

Author Biography

Dr Barbara Kennedy is Emeritus Fellow of St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford and former Lecturer (CUF) in the School of Geography.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vi
Preface	viii
Acknowledgements	xi
Introduction	1	(2)
Inventing Scientific Explanations	3	(8)
Inventing the Age (and Origin) of the Earth	11	(12)
Inventing `Modern Earth Science': Charles Lyell and `The Principles of Geology'	23	(18)
Inventing the Ice Age: the Role of Louis Agassiz	41	(14)
Inventing a Balanced View of `Forces Now in Operation': Charles Darwin's Travels in Space and Time	55	(17)
Inventing a Fluvial Landscape: Powell, Gilbert and the Western Explorations	72	(15)
Inventing the Geographical Cycle and the Synthetic Genius of W.M. Davis	87	(11)
Reinventing a Newtonian Universe: the Reductionist Revolution, 1945--77	98	(14)
Reinventing the Earth, 1977-: Homo sapiens, History and Microorganisms	112	(15)
Epilogue	127	(1)
Appendix I: Cast of Principal Characters	128	(8)
Appendix II: Selective Glossary of Technical Terms	136	(6)
References	142	(10)
Index	152