Earth-Knowledge

History of Earth Sciences as Histories of Knowledge?

Norman Henniges, Johannes Mattes, Marianne Klemun

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040645444
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Using a transdisciplinary approach, this book examines how scientific understanding of the Earth has been created, transformed, and shared across time - combining perspectives from the history of science, sociology of knowledge, and cultural studies to explore the evolution of Earth sciences.

Focusing on the practices, actors, and socio-cultural contexts that have shaped knowledge production, this volume offers fresh methodological insights and highlights the contributions of scientists, local experts, and non-specialist collaborators. Case studies range from Johann Reinhold Forster's eighteenth-century mineralogical research to Cold War impact geology and interdisciplinary developments in ice core paleoclimatology.

Targeted at scholars, students, and general readers, this book provides an innovative lens for understanding the historical dimensions of Earth sciences, bridging disciplinary boundaries and uncovering new perspectives on the production and exchange of knowledge.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Contributors
• 1 Earth–Knowledge: History of Earth Sciences as Histories of Knowledge? An Introduction
• 2 “Our Earth Has Undeniably Suffered Some Great Revolutions”: Johann Reinhold Forster and Scientific World-Making in Eighteenth-Century Natural History
• 3 Performing Science Between Laboratories and Glaciers
• 4 A Paradigm Shift?: German Impact Crater Geology in Light of Its Social/Political Context
• 5 “Very Early, the Enjoyment of Nature Research and Mountaineering Awoke in Me”: Autobiographical Narratives of Lives in Earth Sciences (Early Twentieth Century, Vienna)
• 6 Willful Eyes and Hands: Transferring Theories into Mapmaking Knowledge in Justus Perthes’ Geographical Establishment, ca. 1900–1930
• 7 Vitrified Forts: Prehistoric Settlements as a Topic of Chemistry, Geology, and Early Archaeology in Scotland and Saxony (Eighteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries)
• 8 Bibliographic Data as Knowledge Proxies: Mapping Books and Tracing the Scientific Discipline of “Historische Geographie” (Historical Geography)
• 9 Commentary
• Name Index
• Subject Index