1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910459306403321

Autore

Golinski Jan

Titolo

British weather and the climate of enlightenment [[electronic resource] /] / Jan Golinski

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, : University of Chicago Press, 2007

ISBN

1-282-90189-3

9786612901898

0-226-30206-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (301 p.)

Disciplina

551.50941/09033

Soggetti

Meteorology - Great Britain - History

Weather

Climatology

Electronic books.

Great Britain Climate

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [241]-268) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Experiencing the weather in 1703 -- The "exquisite atmography" and its author -- The atmosphere and the earth -- Clouds in the head -- Public weather and the culture of enlightenment -- The great storm in public debate -- Providence and the British climate -- Conversation and weather lore -- Recording and forecasting -- The discipline of the diary -- The calendar and the seasons -- Forecasting by the heavens -- Barometers of enlightenment -- The genealogy of weather instruments -- The instrument trade and consumers -- Interpreting the "oraculous glasses" -- Sensibility and climatic pathology -- The hippocratic revival -- Aerial sensitivity and social change -- The politics of atmospheric reform -- Climate and civilization -- The enlightenment debate on climate -- Medicine and the colonial situation -- America: climate and destiny -- Conclusion: the science of weather.

Sommario/riassunto

Enlightenment inquiries into the weather sought to impose order on a force that had the power to alter human life and social conditions. British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment reveals how a new sense of the national climate emerged in the eighteenth century from



the systematic recording of the weather, and how it was deployed in discussions of the health and welfare of the population. Enlightened intellectuals hailed climate's role in the development of civilization but acknowledged that human existence depended on natural forces that would never submit to rationa