Enlightenment, Modernity and Science : Geographies of Scientific Culture and Improvement in Georgian England

Scientific culture was one of the defining characteristics of the English Enlightenment. The latest discoveries were debated in homes, institutions and towns around the country. But how did the dissemination of scientific knowledge vary with geographical location? What were the differing influences in town and country and from region to region? Enlightenment, Modernity and Science provides the first full length study of the geographies of Georgian scientific culture in England. The author takes the reader on a tour of the principal arenas in which scientific ideas were disseminated, including home, town and countryside, to show how cultures of science and knowledge varied across the Georgian landscape. Taking in key figures such as Erasmus Darwin, Abraham Bennett, and Joseph Priestley along the way, it is a work that sheds important light on the complex geographies of Georgian English scientific culture.

Paul Elliott is Lecturer in History in the School of Humanities, University of Derby. He teaches at Leicester University and is also a Special Lecturer at the University of Nottingham. His research interests include historical and cultural geography, history of science, landscape history, history of education, and urban and regional history. His most recent book is The Derby Philosophers (2009).