Collecting the world : the life and curiosity of Hans Sloane /

Collecting the world : the life and curiosity of Hans Sloane /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Delbourgo, James, 1972- author.
Imprint:[London] : Penguin Books, 2018.
©2017
Description:xxxi, 503 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 20 cm
Language:English
Subject:
Sloane, Hans, -- Sir, -- 1660-1753.
Sloane, Hans, -- Sir, -- 1660-1753.
Collectors and collecting -- Great Britain -- Biography.
Physicians -- Northern Ireland -- Biography.
Museum techniques -- History.
Collectors and collecting.
Museum techniques.
Physicians.
Great Britain.
Northern Ireland.
Biographies.
Biography.
History.
Biographies.
Format: Map Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11871586
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:0718194438
9780718194437
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 425-471) and index.
Summary:Hans Sloane (1660-1753) was the greatest collector of his time. Born in the north of Ireland, Sloane made his fortune as a physician to London's wealthiest residents and through investment in land and slavery. He became one of the eighteenth century's preeminent natural historians and assembled an astonishing collection of specimens, artefacts and oddities - the most famous curiosity cabinet of the age. Shortly after his death, Sloane's vast collection was acquired - as he had hoped - by the nation. It became the nucleus of the world's first national public museum, the British Museum, which opened in 1759. This is the first biography of Sloane in over sixty years and the first based on his surviving collections. Early modern science and collecting are shown to be global endeavours intertwined with imperial enterprise and slavery but which nonetheless gave rise to one of the great public institutions of the Enlightenment, as the cabinet of curiosities gave way to the encyclopaedic museum. 'Collecting the world' describes this pivotal moment in the emergence of modern knowledge, and brings this totemic figure back to life.

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