Toward an intercultural natural history of Brazil: the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae reconsidered

Abstract

"This volume presents the first extensive census of the surviving copies of the treatise Historia Naturalis Brasiliae in libraries worldwide and examines it from a variety of interdisciplinary viewpoints. Toward an Intercultural Natural History of Brazil offers essential reading on the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae, natural history and Latin American history"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Locating Knowledge in Early Modern Brazil and India: A Comparative Study of Historia Naturalis Brasiliae (1648) and Hortus Malabaricus (1678-1693) / Anjana Singh and Mariana Françozo -- Portuguese Parallels: Comparing Analogous Efforts toward Codifying Indigenous Medicinal Knowledge in Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-Century Brazil / Timothy D. Walker -- Cover to Cover: A Book Historical Approach to the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae / Alex Alsemgeest and Jeroen Bos -- Searching for Copaiba: Tracing the Quest for a Wound-Healing Oil by Early Explorers in Brazil / Tinde van Andel, Mariana Françozo, and Mireia Alcantara Rodriguez -- An Imaginary Brazilian Zoo: Traditions and Innovations in the Portrayal of Animals in the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae / Annemarieke Willemsen -- Marcgraf's Fish in the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae and the Rhetorics of Autoptic Testimony / Paul J. Smith -- Reconnecting Knowledges: Historia Naturalis Brasiliae back to Indigenous Societies / Aline da Cruz and Walkíria Neiva Praça -- Appendix: Census of the Copies of Willem Piso and Georg Marcgraf's Historia -- Naturalis Brasiliae (Leiden and Amsterdam: Elzevier, 1648) / Alex Alsemgeest and Jeroen Bos.