Journal Centaurus, vol. 65.4 (2023)

Centaurus. Journal of the European Society for the History of Science, Volume 65 (2023), Issue 4

Nehemiah Grew and the Making of The Anatomy of Plants (1682), edited by Christoffer Basse Eriksen and Pamela Mackenzie

  • Pages: 236 p.
  • Size:178 x 254 mm
  • Illustrations:26 col.
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:2025


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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-60361-2
  • Paperback
  • Forthcoming (Mar/25)


Nehemiah Grew was an active member of the Royal Society during the lively period of its early years in the 1670s and 1680s, serving both as Curator for the Anatomy of Plants and as Secretary to the society. As a result of his decade producing innovative studies on plants using a microscope, he published The Anatomy of Plants in 1682, a lavishly illustrated book that was widely circulated and very influential in the decades following its publication. Yet, despite the key role Grew and his work played in determining the direction of research in these formative years of the Royal Society and its networks, Grew today remains an understudied figure in the history of science. This special issue, which features emerging scholarship from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, not only highlights Grew’s individual role in shaping research in the late seventeenth century, but by extension centers the field of plant studies and the biological sciences, considering their impact on the philosophical and economic principles being developed at that time. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Special Issue: Nehemiah Grew and the Making of 'The Anatomy of Plants' (1682)

Christoffer Basse Eriksen & Pamela Mackenzie, Introduction. The Making of The Anatomy of Plants

Fabrizio Baldassarri, From Seed to Seed. Material Activities and Vegetable Life in Grew’s Philosophy of Botany

Justin Niermeier-Dohoney, A Utopian Model of Order. Imperial Skepticism and Local Ecologies in Nehemiah Grew's Political Economy of Nature

Christoffer Basse Eriksen, Apricots, Plums, and Garden Beans. Reassembling Nehemiah Grew's Collection of Plants

Pamela Mackenzie, What is Seen in a Garden Bean. Revisions and Copies in Nehemiah Grew’s Plant Anatomy

Oana Matei, Building an Early Modern Science of Vegetation. Nehemiah Grew’s Inquiries into the "Anatomy of Plants"

Justin Begley, Seeing Plants as Animals. Analogical Reasoning in Nehemiah Grew’s Anatomy of Plants (1682)

Anna Marie Roos, Nehemiah Grew and the Anatomy of Plants. The Essential Tension

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