The relationship between science and civil society is essential to our understanding of cultural change during the Victorian era. Science was frequently packaged as an appropriate form of civic culture, inculcating virtues necessary for civic progress. In turn, civic culture was presented as an appropriate context for enabling and supporting scientific progress. Finnegan's study looks at the shifting nature of this process during the nineteenth century, using Scotland as the focus for his argument. Considerations of class, religion and gender are explored, illuminating changing social identities as public interest in science was allowed—even encouraged—beyond the environs of universities and elite metropolitan societies.

This book takes a fresh look at the most disliked tree in Britain and Ireland, explaining the reasons it was introduced and why it became ubiquitous in the archipelagos of northwest Europe. Sitka spruce has contributed to the Pacific Coast landscapes of North America for over ten millennia. For the Tlingit First Nation it is the most important tree in terms of spiritual relationships, art, and products in daily use such as canoes, containers, fish-traps and sweet cakes. Since the late nineteenth century it has also been the most important tree to the timber industry of west coast North America. The historical background to the modern use of Sitka spruce is explored. The lack of cultural reference may explain negative public response when treeless uplands in the UK and Ireland were afforested with introduced conifer species, particularly Sitka spruce, following two World Wars. The multipurpose forestry of today recognizes that Sitka spruce is the most important tree to the timber industry and to a public which uses its many products but fails to recognize the link between growing trees and bought goods. The apparently featureless and wildlife-less Sitka spruce plantations in UK uplands are gradually developing recognizable ecological features. Sitka spruce has the potential to form temperate rain forests this century as well as to produce much-needed goods for society. The major contribution of Sitka spruce to landscapes and livelihoods in western North America is, by contrast, widely accepted. But conserving natural, old-growth forests, sustaining the needs of First Nations, and producing materials for the modern timber industry will be an intricate task.

Anne Troelstra’s fine bibliography is an outstanding and ground-breaking work. He has provided the academic world with a long-needed bibliographical record of human endeavour in the field of the natural sciences. The travel narratives listed here encompass all aspects of the natural world in every part of the globe, but are especially concerned with its fauna, flora and fossil remains. Such eyewitness accounts have always fascinated their readers, but they were never written solely for entertainment: fragmentary though they often are, these narratives of travel and exploration are of immense importance for our scientific understanding of life on earth, providing us with a window on an ever changing, and often vanishing, natural world. Without such records of the past we could not track, document or understand the significance of changes that are so important for the study of zoogeography. With this book Troelstra gives us a superb overview of natural history travel narratives. The well over four thousand detailed entries, ranging over four centuries and all major western European languages, are drawn from a wide range of sources and include both printed books and periodical contributions. While no subject bibliography by a single author can attain absolute completeness, Troelstra’s work is comprehensive to a truly remarkable degree. The entries are arranged alphabetically by author and chronologically, by the year of first publication, under the author’s name. A brief biography, with the scope and range of their work, is given for each author; every title is set in context, the contents – including illustrations – are described and all known editions and translations are cited. In addition, there is a geographical index that cross refers between authors and the regions visited, and a full list of the bibliographical and biographical sources used in compiling the bibliography.