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E-book Reign of the Beast : The Atheist World of W. D. Saull and his Museum of Evolution

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Penilaian

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So warned the appalled editor of theChurch of England Magazine in 1840, after leaving a talk in a socialist hall by the London wine merchant and museum owner William Devonshire Saull (1783–1855). It was a reminder that the new science of the earth was not only startling and fashionable, but dangerous in dirty hands. Dissidents were harnessing geological armaments for use against the biblical props of priestly power. They were making the age of rocks undermine the Rock of Ages. An infidel geology was even being used to attack the top-down power structure of society, which denied the activists what they demanded: democracy for the radicals, and an anti-capitalist economy for the co-operators. In the wrong hands, seditious hands, the re-manufactured science could even serve the Antichrist.Step in Saull with his filthy heresy of a monkey origin for man. Saull came tainted, having made his public debut in court, indicted on blasphemy charges. He was the financial backer of the jailed blasphemer Richard Carlile in the 1820s and of the socialist Robert Owen thereafter. His heresy was worse for being taught publicly, in London’s largest private geology museum—his museum, which was dedicated to the evolving history of life. Astonishingly, this museum was founded early, it was up and running in June 1831, only months after a young Charles Darwin had taken his degree at Cambridge.How do we illuminate the back alleys where such strange views were fomenting? Trajectories are one way to throw light on mature views. The gentlemanly Darwin’s path, his education, travels, materials, mentors, collections, political and religious convictions, have been meticulously dissected by scholars to plot his path to natural selection. Saull’s background was the antithesis: untutored origins, trading status, socialist politics, atheism, and mentors whom Darwin would have detested. It is this peculiar set of circumstances that Reign of the Beast explores. With Saull leaving so little documentary evidence, we can only take a contextual approach, to show his very different trajectory through a series of underground dives. Where Secord’s Victorian Sensationfollows readers reacting to one pot-boiling book (the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation), Reign of the Beast looks to a prior process in the making of knowledge: how the amalgam of plebeian science changed as it passed through successive blasphemous, radical, and co-operative furnaces.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

576.8 DES r

Penerbit

London : Open Book Publishers., 2024

Deskripsi Fisik

678 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781805112419

Klasifikasi

576.8

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Evolution

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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