British naturalists in Qing China: science, empire, and cultural encounter

Abstract

"Fan reconstructs and explains the aims, methods, and achievements of naturalists' research in a China coming to grips with Western powers. He investigates how natural history, horticulture, Chinese export art, folk knowledge, and Sinology converged in the scientific representation of the natural history of China. Scientific practice and knowledge took shape, as he shows, in the cultural "borderlands," during a critical period in Sino-Western relations."--BOOK JACKET.

Contents

I. The Port -- 1. Natural History in a Chinese Entrepot -- 2. Art, Commerce, and Natural History -- II. The Land -- 3. Science and Informal Empire -- 4. Sinology and Natural History -- 5. Travel and Fieldwork in the Interior.