TY  - BOOK
AU  - Ritvo, Harriet
AU  - Ritvo, Harriet
TI  - The platypus and the mermaid, and other figments of the classifying imagination
SN  - 9780674673588
U1  - 590.12 RIT 
PY  - 1997///
CY  - Cambridge, Mass.
PB  -  : Harvard University Press, 
KW  - Animals  Zoology
KW  - Animals -- Great Britain -- Classification -- History -- 18th century
KW  - Natural history -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century
KW  - Popular culture -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
KW  - Natural History
KW  - Popular culture
KW  - Great Britain
KW  - Names -- history
N1  - his book captures the fervor of the Victorian age for classifying and categorizing every new specimen, plant or animal, that British explorers and soldiers and sailors brought home. As she depicts a whole complex of competing groups deploying rival schemes and nomenclatures, Harriet Ritvo shows us a society drawing and redrawing its own boundaries and ultimately identifying itself. A thoroughly absorbing account of taxonomy - as zoological classification and as anthropological study - The Platypus and the Mermaid offers a new perspective on the constantly shifting, ever suggestive interactions of scientific lore, cultural ideas, and the popular imagination.
N2  - his book captures the fervor of the Victorian age for classifying and categorizing every new specimen, plant or animal, that British explorers and soldiers and sailors brought home. As she depicts a whole complex of competing groups deploying rival schemes and nomenclatures, Harriet Ritvo shows us a society drawing and redrawing its own boundaries and ultimately identifying itself. A thoroughly absorbing account of taxonomy - as zoological classification and as anthropological study - The Platypus and the Mermaid offers a new perspective on the constantly shifting, ever suggestive interactions of scientific lore, cultural ideas, and the popular imagination.
ER  -