Overview

"A generation or two before Socrates, thinkers classified the world's organisms into three categories: plants, animals, and man. However, Aristotle recognized that some organisms, such as sponges and sea-fans, share properties of both plants and animals. These became known as zoophytes. Since then, scientists have explored the idea of a ""third kingdom."" In Kingdoms, Empires, and Domains, leading molecular systematist Mark A. Ragan offers a history of the idea that there is more to the living world than plants and animals. Progressing chronologically through philosophical, religious, literary, and other pre-scientific traditions, Ragan traces how transgressive creatures such as sponges, corals, algae, fungi, and diverse microscopic beings have been described, categorized, and understood throughout history. The book considers their appearance in early Christian, Islamic, and Jewish traditions; myths, legends, and traveller's tales; occult literature; and more. Kingdoms, Empires, and Domains also details how the concept of a ""third kingdom"" has evolved throughout the history of scientific botany and zoology, and continues to evolve up to the present day. Kingdoms, Empires, and Domains features original translations of passages from key historical texts, many of which have never appeared in English before. It also draws on the most recent and reliable scientific literature. A sweeping, interdisciplinary study, Kingdoms, Empires, and Domains is essential reading for students and scholars of the history of biological classification and anyone interested in the history of ideas about the natural world."

Full Product Details

Author:   Mark A. Ragan (Emeritus Professor, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Emeritus Professor, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 25.60cm , Height: 4.60cm , Length: 18.80cm
Weight:   1.683kg
ISBN:  

9780197643037

ISBN 10:   0197643035
Pages:   856
Publication Date:   07 November 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

"List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgement: copyrighted material Chapter 1. The Earliest Nature Primitive concepts of natural entities Early figurative art Symbolic language and folk taxonomies Creation myths Animal deities and anthropomorphized plants Transformation and metamorphosis Metempsychosis, reincarnation, and anamnesis Transmutation and transubstantiation Chapter 2. Eastern Nature The Indian subcontinent Buddhism China: the common tradition China: Confucianism China: Taoism China: Mohism Japan The ""three kingdoms of nature"" are not rooted in prehistory Chapter 3. Philosophical Nature Hellenic philosophical traditions before Socrates The Pythagoreans The Eleatics The atomists Empedocles Diogenes of Apollonia Socrates Plato Aristotle Theophrastus Stoic and later triadic divisions of soul or beings Scepticism Envoi Chapter 4. Utilitarian Nature Lucretius Seneca Pliny the Elder Herbals and pharmacopoeias Early medical texts Bestiaries Summary Chapter 5. Neoplatonic Nature Philo of Alexandria Calvenus Taurus Plotinus Porphyry and Anatolius Iamblichus and Dexippus Themistius Athens and Alexandria Ammonius Hermiæ and John Philoponus Elias and David Summary: philosophical themes within Neoplatonism Chapter 6. Christian Nature Early theologians and polemicists Origen Nemesius The Cappadocian Fathers Augustine Pseudo-Dionysius Boëthius John of Damascus Summary Chapter 7. Islamic and Jewish Nature Islam and the translation of Hellenic philosophy into Arabic Arabic natural history, an-Na.z.z=am, and al-J=a.hi.z Al-Kind=i, al-F=ar=ab=i, and al-Mas),=ud=i The Ikhw=an al-.Saf=a Al-B=ir=un=i, Ibn S=in=a, al-Ghaz=al=i, Ibn Rushd, and al-Abhar=i Ni.zam=i Ar=uz=i, al-Qazwini, and later authors .Sufiyya The Jewish philosophical tradition: Ibn Daud and Maimonides Kabbalah Duran, Alemanno, and Albotini The rediscovery of Aristotle's natural history Chapter 8. Monastic and Scholastic Nature Cassiodorus to Hrabanus Maurus Eriugena Anselm, Peter Abelard, and Peter Lombard Adelard and Berachya Hildegard and Marius The School of Chartres Bernard Silvestris and John Blund Robert Grosseteste Thomas of Cantimpré, Bartholomæus Anglicus, and Vincent of Beauvais Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas Bonaventure and Dante The Fourteenth century Nicholas of Cusa From scholasticism to humanism Chapter 9. Nature's Mystic Book Oracles and mysteries Thrice-great Hermes Universal truths and hidden meanings Gnostic texts Macrocosm and microcosm Alchemy The Kit=ab Sirr al-khal=iqa The Sirr al-asrar or Secretum secretorum Magic From J=abir to the Renaissance Three Renaissance humanists: Ficino, Pico, and Agrippa Paracelsus and the alchemists Bruno, Fludd, and the nature-mystics Summary and questions Chapter 10. Allegory, Myth, and Superstition Allegory Beings with exaggerated features Chimæras: the borametz Active transformation: the barnacle-goose-tree Return from the dead Monsters and marvels Ancients and Moderns Chapter 11. The Return of the Zoophytes Dictionaries Guillaume Budé: Roman law (1508) Otto Brunfels: materia medica (1534) François Rabelais: literature in the vernacular (1546) Jean Bodin: political theory (1576) Jacopo Zabarella: Aristotelian logic (1606) Johann Thomas Freig: Ramist natural history (1579) Robert Burton: English vernacular (1621) Juan Eusebio Nieremberg: baroque nature (1635) David Person: rare and excellent matters (1635) Henry More: the Spirit of Nature (1682) Concluding comments Chapter 12. Plants and Animals Herbals (from 1475) The rise of scientific botany 1: 1490-1580 Andrea Cesalpino The rise of scientific botany 2: 1580-1680 Medieval and early Renaissance animal books The rise of scientific zoology 1: 1520-1550 The rise of scientific zoology 2: the momentous 1550s The rise of scientific zoology 3: the encyclopædists 1560-1660 The rise of scientific zoology 4: curiosities and specialization Zoophyta: a fourth division of nature? Plants and animals in 1680 Chapter 13. The Most Wretched Creatures Multiple worlds Invisible airborne seeds Leibniz and monads Leeuwenhoek and Joblot: little animals observed Buffon, Needham, and Spallanzani: spontaneous generation A class of their own? Summary: one hundred years of little animals Chapter 14. Continuity in the Living World The Great Chain under attack Richard Bradley: A philosophical account Corals: an ancient enigma resolved Hydra: a new enigma Charles Bonnet: the canonical Great Chain of Being The Great Chain after 1780 Chapter 15. Classifying God's Handiwork Magnol and Tournefort Ray and natural theology Linnæus What, then, are fungi? Adanson, Scopoli, and de Jussieu Zoophyta as animals Summary Chapter 16. Beyond the End of the Chain Nature as a map Nature as a network Nature as a polygon or Easter egg Nature as a branched tree Nature as a spiral Nature as a circle Quinarian nature Summary Chapter 17. From Histoire Naturelle to Anatomie and Morphologie Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d'Alembert Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Georges Cuvier Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Félix Vicq-d'Azyr: le règne vivant Jean Guillaume Bruguière: a new arrangement of Vermes Julien-Joseph Virey: evolution along parallel chains Pierre-Jean-François Turpin: végéto-animaux Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville: infusoria as an appendage Henri Milne-Edwards: embryology and classification Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent: Règne Psychodiaire Summary: France Chapter 18. Naturphilosophie, Polygastric Animalcules, and Cells Johann Gottfried Herder Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Immanuel Kant: transcendental idealism German Romanticism Naturphilosophie Lorenz Oken Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus Alexander von Humboldt Karl Ernst von Baer Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg Cell theory The last Naturphilosoph: Carl Gustav Carus Summary: Germany Chapter 19: Green Matter, Zoospores, and Diatoms Simple animals, simple plants How, then, do algae reproduce? Case study 1: Priestley's green matter Case study 2: zoospores Case study 3: metamorphosis Benjamin Gaillon Friedrich Traugott Kützing Case study 4: diatoms and desmids Summary Chapter 20: Temples of Nature Britain: three Linnæan kingdoms Erasmus Darwin Natural theology Richard Owen Vestiges of the natural history of Creation Charles Darwin John Hogg Thomas B. Wilson and John Cassin Popular natural histories in Victorian Britain Summary: Britain Chapter 21: Ernst Haeckel and Protista Die Radiolarien (1862) Generelle Morphologie (1866) New classes of Protista Sponges and gastraea theory Monera, protozoa, and protophyta Das Protistenreich (1878) Protists and Histones Four kingdoms of life The protozoological tradition The phycological tradition The bacteriological tradition The protistological tradition Summary: Haeckel and Protista Chapter 22: Beyond Three Kingdoms Kingdoms and superkingdoms Four kingdoms (Copeland, 1938-1956) Five kingdoms (Whittaker, 1969) Other high-level proposals to 1975 The rise of cellular ultrastructure Eukaryogenesis 1: Natura facit saltum Eukaryogenesis 2: science may discover ten Summary Chapter 23: Genes, Genomes, and Domains Introduction: the molecular basis of heredity Molecular phylogenetics before sequences The ribosomal RNA Tree of Life The molecular consensus erodes Thinking laterally about genomes Genomes and pan-genomes Genomes from the environment Retrospective: the domains of life Last words on kingdoms, empires, and domains Appendix: Victorian popular natural histories Acronyms Notes References Index of names Index of subjects"

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Author Information

Mark A. Ragan is an emeritus professor at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at the University of Queensland. From 2000 to 2014, he served as founding head of IMB's Genomics and Computational Biology division. He concurrently served as founding director of the Australian Research Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and later co-founded QFAB Informatics. Ragan is co-author of A Biochemical Phylogeny of the Protists (Academic Press, 1978) and numerous peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Cell, Nature, Nature Communications, Nature Microbiology, PNAS, and more. He is a former president and an honorary lifetime member of the International Seaweed Association and currently senior fellow of the Australian Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Society.

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