Nature in Ireland: A Scientific and Cultural History

by John Wilson Foster (Editor)

Nature in Ireland is a superb, comprehensive assessment of the state of the study of the natural sciences in Ireland today. Years in the making, this wide-ranging collection of thirty-two essays especially commissioned for this volume will appeal to general reader and specialist alike. Almost every aspect of Irish nature, from the geological prehistory of the island itself to the late twentieth-century concept of the natural world as theme park is explored. A lengthy Introduction by the editor, John Wilson Foster, sets forth the grounds for examination and discovery as he asks the fundamental questions of the contributors: How has Irish nature been studied? How has it been expressed in literature and popular culture? How has it influenced by political, economic, and social change?

These questions are answered in essays on geography, geology, the earliest Irish naturalists, nature and nationalism, forestry, cartography, botany, boglands, mammalogy, entomology, meteorology, ornithology, Darwin in Belfast and evolution theory, fishing, game hunting and shooting, Victorian naturalists, wildlife in literature, the famous Clare Island survey, Irish figures in biological and geological expeditions around the world, and the nomenclature of nature in a bilingual society.

Genres: Ireland, Ecology, Nature

Paperback

First published April 1, 1998