The culture of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Britain is rarely credited with tolerance of diversity; this period saw a rising pride in national identity, the expansion of colonialism, and glorification of the Anglo-Saxon roots of the country. Yet at the same time, Wolfram Schmidgen observes, the concept of mixture became a critical element of Britons' belief in their own superiority. While the scientific, political, and religious establishment of the early 1600s could not imagine that anything truly formed, virtuous, or durable could be produced by mixing unlike kinds or merging absolute forms, intellectuals at the end of the century asserted that mixture could produce superior languages, new species, flawless ideas, and resilient civil societies. Exquisite Mixture examines the writing of Robert Boyle, John Locke, Daniel Defoe, and others who challenged the primacy of the one over the many, the whole over the parts, and form over matter. Schmidgen traces the emergence of the valuation of mixture to the political and scientific revolutions of the seventeenth century. The recurrent threat of absolutism in this period helped foster alliances within a broad range of writers and fields of inquiry, from geography, embryology, and chemistry to political science and philosophy. By retrieving early modern arguments for the civilizing effects of mixture, Schmidgen invites us to rethink the stories we tell about the development of modern society. Not merely the fruit of postmodernism, the theorization and valuation of hybridity have their roots in centuries past.

Including all Robert Boyle's published works, this is the first seven volumes of a 14-volume set. All texts are fully annotated and comprehensively indexed. Works originally in Latin are presented in their contemporary English translations.

Soyer presents a history of food focusing on the table of classical antiquity and food in ancient times: agriculture, milling, recipes, mythological origin, ingredients, utensils, exotic dishes, dining habits and customs, and spices and seasonings.

"Tell me what thou eatest," Alexis Soyer declared in a familiar refrain, "and I will tell thee who thou art." In his book Pantropheon, originally published in 1853, the flamboyant Frenchman (and world's first celebrity chef) ventures to answer that question as he presents a wealth of entertaining and enlightening information on what food the people of ancient civilizations ate and how they prepared it. Describing the culinary achievements of the Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, Egyptians, and Jews, Soyer covers such topics as the mythological origin of specific foods (pomegranates and eels, for example); agricultural, milling, and marketing practices; descriptions of seasonings, pastries, and exotic dishes; the treatment of dinner guests; as well as suggestions for serving pigeon, peacock, wild boar, camel, elephant, flamingo, and other wildlife. Enhanced by 38 illustrations depicting food-related objects and antiquity's gastronomic wonders, this witty and literal study of epicurean delights will charm history buffs and food enthusiasts alike.

Exploring a topic at the intersection of science, philosophy and literature in the late eighteenth century Dahlia Porter traces the history of induction as a writerly practice - as a procedure for manipulating textual evidence by selective quotation - from its roots in Francis Bacon's experimental philosophy to its pervasiveness across Enlightenment moral philosophy, aesthetics, literary criticism, and literature itself. Porter brings this history to bear on an omnipresent feature of Romantic-era literature, its mixtures of verse and prose. Combining analyses of printed books and manuscripts with recent scholarship in the history of science, she elucidates the compositional practices and formal dilemmas of Erasmus Darwin, Robert Southey, Charlotte Smith, Maria Edgeworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In doing so she re-examines the relationship between Romantic literature and eighteenth-century empiricist science, philosophy, and forms of art and explores how Romantic writers engaged with the ideas of Enlightenment empiricism in their work.