Peter Collinson and the Eighteenth-Century Natural History Exchange (American Philosophical Society Memoir 264, ISBN: 9780871692641)

Peter Collinson and the Eighteenth-Century Natural History Exchange
(American Philosophical Society Memoir 264, ISBN: 9780871692641)
by Jean O’Neill and Elizabeth P. McLean
(Paperback, 216 pages, 2008, $75.00)

Collinson’s life is a microcosm of 18th-century natural history. A gardener and naturalist by avocation, he was what we would now call a facilitator in natural science, disseminating botanical and horticultural knowledge during the Enlightenment.

He influenced the Comte de Buffon and Linnaeus. He found clients for the Philadelphia naturalist John Bartram. American plants populated great estates like those of the Dukes of Richmond, Norfolk, and Bedford, as well as the Chelsea Physic Garden, and the nurseries of James Gordon and Robert Furber. Botanic painters such as Mark Catesby and Georg Dionysius Ehret painted American plants in Collinson’s garden.

He had an unprecedented effect on the exchange of scientific information on both sides of the Atlantic, being credited for introducing more than 150 plans to horticulture. Illustrations.

“One man can make a difference,” co-author Elizabeth McLean tells Green Scene [PDF] in the September/October 2009 issue. “[Collinson] did it for love. He was self-educated, yet he made enormous contributions to natural history in the eighteenth century.”

This book has been indexed by H.W. Wilson in their “Essay and General Literature Index” for June 2009.

H.W. Wilson writes: “These essays describe the life and achievements of the Quaker Peter Collinson, an 18th century London draper and naturalist whose interest in horticulture led him to establish contact with the Philadelphia Quaker farmer and naturalist John Bartram and to import Bartram’s American plants to England.

“The consequent popularity of American plants in English gardens, reflected even in the botanic paintings of the period, have earned Collinson a place in the history of botany as a facilitator between English and American horticulture.”

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Dashkova: A Life of Influence and Exile (American Philosophical Society Transaction 97-3, ISBN: 0871699737)

Dashkova: A Life of Influence and Exile
(American Philosophical Society Transaction 97-3, ISBN: 0871699737)
by Alexander Woronzoff-Dashkoff (Paperback, 331 pages, 2008, $29.00)

A woman of letters and the first woman member of the American Philosophical Society, Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova (nee Vorontsova) was also the first modern stateswoman in Russia.

Early in her life she dressed in an officer’s uniform and boldly stepped forward to play an active role in the political arena, where she participated in the palace revolution of 1762. Subsequently, Dashkova was appointed director of the Academy of Sciences by Catherine II and she founded and became President of the Russian Academy. For close to 12 years, she headed both prestigious academic institutions.

She was a leading figure in 18th-century Russian culture as she strove to institute reforms, to adapt and apply the ideas of the Enlightenment, and to establish new approaches to the education of Russia’s youth. Sadly, her relationship with her own children was deeply tragic, and later in life she was exiled to the north of Russia.

This biography focuses on Dashkova’s efforts in her life and works to isolate, clarify, and define patterns of action, identity, and gender for herself as well as for other women. Illustrations.

“Demonstrating an encyclopedic knowledge of 18th century primary sources, politics, families, and personal relationships, Woronzoff-Dashkoff accomplishes both his scholarly and personal purposes by vividly recreating Dashkova’s life,” writes reviewer Sherri Thompson Raney in the journal The Russian Review (PDF). “He argues that she succeeded at doing man’s work in a man’s world by assuming a series of disguises and donning convincing masks.”

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