American Curiosity

“A richly detailed account of the various practices and participants involved in the production of natural history knowledge in the colonial British Atlantic world.” — Journal of the History of Science

“Brilliant chapters. . . . Wide-ranging research. . . . Parrish describes in remarkable detail the work of a large number of curious North Americans. . . . [American Curiosity] is a significant contribution to prerevolutionary social and intellectual history.” — Bloomsbury Review

“Full of fascinating moments and of telling intersections.” — American Historical Review

“A treasure trove of visual and written sources. . . . A fresh and valuable addition to the field. . . . Offer[s] an authoritative study which will appeal to scholars working in a wide range of disciplines.” — Journal of American Studies

“[Advances] historical understanding of colonial natural history in ways that specialists have demanded but not pursued, and will force them to rethink the categories they employ.” — Journal of the Early Republic

“A major contribution to many fields . . . should appeal to an interdisciplinary audience.” — New England Quarterly

“Marvelous, meticulous, and original. . . . An outstanding work of historical recovery, beautifully executed, closely argued, and laden with telling quotations. . . . Richly suggestive, if not fundamental, for future studies.” — William and Mary Quarterly

“An essential book for anyone with an interest in how natural knowledge was acquired, circulated, and understood within the eighteenth-century Atlantic world.” — Winterthur Portfolio

“Involves close readings of a . . . wide variety of texts in the genres and medias concerned with natural history. Pastoral poetry, sermons, travel accounts, and especially travel accounts are all set firmly against the more formal, propagandist and myopic publications of the Royal Society.” — The Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“[A] fascinating and important study of the natural world. . . . Parrish explores a topic not much discussed by early Americanists, and she does so convincingly and intelligently.” — Canadian Journal of History