A Glorious Enterprise: The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Making of American Science
Robert McCracken Peck and Patricia Tyson Stroud. Photographs by Rosamond Purcell
464 pages | 9 1/2 x 12 | 269 color illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4380-2 | $75.00 | £49.00
"A book to remember. . . . To wander through A Glorious Enterprise is to absorb the 19th century's passion for botany and zoology; the 20th century's mania for exploration of distant, difficult or desolate places; and present-day preoccupations. . . . All of these tales are fascinating, but the book's true fascination comes in its color photographs and illustrations, scores of them."
—Cornelia Dean, New York Times
This first complete history of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia narrates signal moments, achievements, and the colorful characters associated with an institution that shaped the study of natural history in America. Stunning original photographs by Rosamond Purcell cast extraordinary specimens from Academy collections in a new light.
Watch Peck and Stroud discuss A Glorious Enterprise behind the scences at the Academy.
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