Geology in the Nineteenth Century : Changing Views of a Changing World

In this clear and comprehensive introduction to developments in geological theory during the nineteenth century, Mott T. Greene asserts that the standard accounts of nineteenth-century geology, which dwell on the work of Anglo-American scientists, have obscured the important contributions of Continental geologists; he balances this traditional emphasis with a close study of the innovations of the French, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Swiss geologists whose comprehensive theory of earth history actually dominated geological thought of the time. Greene's account of the Continental scientists places the history of geology in a new light: it demonstrates that scientific interest in the late nineteenth century shifted from uniform and steady processes to periodic and cyclic events—rather than the other way around, as the Anglo-American view has represented it. He also puts continental drift theory in its context, showing that it was not a revolutionary idea but one that emerged naturally from the Continental geologists' foremost subject of study-the origin of mountains, oceans, and continents. A careful inquiry into the nature of geology as a field poised between natural history and physical science, __Geology in the Nineteenth Century__ will interest students and scholars of geology, geophysics, and geography as well as intellectual historians and historians of science.

Becoming Bourgeois traces the fortunes of three French families in the municipality of Vannes, in Brittany—Galles, Jollivet, and Le Ridant—who rose to prominence in publishing, law, the military, public administration, and intellectual pursuits over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Revisiting complex issues of bourgeois class formation from the perspective of the interior lives of families, Christopher H. Johnson argues that the most durable and socially advantageous links forging bourgeois ascent were those of kinship. Economic success, though certainly derived from the virtues of hard work and intelligent management, was always underpinned by marriage strategies and the diligent intervention of influential family members.Johnson's examination of hundreds of personal letters opens up a whole world: the vicissitudes of courtship; the centrality of marriage; the depths of conjugal love; the routines of pregnancy and the drama of childbirth; the practices of child rearing and education; the powerful place of siblings; the role of kin in advancing the next generation; tragedy and deaths; the enormous contributions of women in all aspects of becoming bourgeois; and the pleasures of gathering together in intimate soirées, grand balls, country houses, and civic and political organizations. Family love bound it all together, and this is ultimately what this book is about, as four generations of rather ordinary provincial people capture our hearts.

Foreword Contents Illustrations Preface Chapter 1. Hutton and Werner: First Principles Chapter 2. The Convergence of Geognosy and Geology, 1802 -1818 Chapter 3. Elie de Beaumont and the First Global Tectonics Chapter 4. The Origin of Mountain Ranges : European Debate, 1830 - 1874 Chapter 5. The Debate in North America, 1840 - 1873 Chapter 6. The Problem of the Alps and a Solution : Eduard Suess, 1875 Chapter 7. The Face of the Earth: Eduard Suess and the Second Global Tectonics Chapter 8. The Nappe Theory in the Alps : Tectonics over Physics, 1878 - 1903 Chapter 9. New Orogenic Theory and Intercontinental Correlation Chapter 10. The Decline of the Contraction Theory : The Challenge from Geophysics , 1870 - 1909 Chapter 11. Thomas C. Chamberlin and the Third Global Tectonics Chapter 12. Radioactivity, Continental Drift, and the Fourth Global Tectonics , 1908 - 1912 Epilogue Glossary Bibliography Index