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EAN: 9780007209880 Format: Import ISBN: 0007209886 Label: HarperPress Manufacturer: HarperPress Number Of Pages: 352 Publication Date: January 07, 2008 Publisher: HarperPress Studio: HarperPress Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Reflections on the past, present and future state of nature in the human worldLondon's Natural History Museum, a place of many treasures, offers many surprises - and natural scientist Richard Fortey provides tour of the museum unlocking not only its contents, but a lively history of the discipline itself. Chapters follow explorers, scientists, collection methods and categorization challenges, offering a fine blend of biography, natural science and museum collecting history, and reflections on the past, present and future state of nature in the human world. Rating:  - Uneven - Some good parts but it overstays its welcomeThis is a book I really wanted to like - I've always enjoyed museums and science and an inside look at one of the world's great museums sounded promising. Richard Fortey spent his entire adult life working at the British Natural History Museum and he has acquired a vast amount of anecdotes, history and experiences. The book is a mix of museum history, science and sketches of the people who work or worked at the museum. Some parts are excellent while others are boring or repetitive. ... Read More Rating: - The Museum, the Scientists and their SpecimensAbout a month ago, (September 2008) I had a chance to hear Richard Fortey himself lecturing about this book. The lecture, very fittingly, was happening in a natural history museum. As his lecture unfolded, I found myself with many of the most interesting characters that have ever contributed to natural history, both famous and obscure. I also learned about what goes on behind the scenes of the museum, and of some of the many interesting and strange specimens which are not on display, such as an ... Read More Rating: - Night at the museum with a personal tour guideBehind-the-scenes look at London's Natural History Museum is an interesting peak at the "coalface"--Fortey's term for the daily work occurring beyond and below the public galleries--of museum science. Fortey describes the main work of the Museum, and its sister institutions in other countries, as systematic taxonomy--the attempt to exhaustively categorize and collect reference examples of each species of plant, animal, and mineral. In an era of hard-to-obtain research grants and declining ... Read More Rating: - Museums and Their Back RoomsIf you like visiting museums and you've ever wondered what goes on behind the displays and doors marked 'Employees Only', this is the book for you! It gives the reader a fascinating insight into how museums collect, exhibit, and store items, many of which never hit the public eye. The book is well worth reading. The insight into England's 'Natural History Museum' has a lot of stories of how it works, how it got its collections, how it maintains and exhibits them, who works there and why, how science ... Read More |
