Producing and using the Historical Relation of Ceylon

Robert Knox, the East India Company and the Royal Society

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8395268
AutoresA Winterbottom (0000-0002-1206-9430, Queen Mary University of London, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen42
Número4
Páginas515-538
Fecha de publicación2009-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe British Journal for the History of Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0007-0874 • E-ISSN: 1474-001X
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0007087409002209
OpenAlexW2160250190
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas13

Robert Knox's An Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon was produced, published and enlarged through the collaboration of the author with scholars including Robert Hooke and financial support from members of the East India Company. The Relation should be seen in the context of a number of texts collected, translated or commissioned by the East India Company in cooperation with the Royal Society during the late seventeenth century that informed and shaped both European expansion and natural philosophy. As well as circulating between European intellectual centres, often reorientated in the process of translation, these texts served as practical guides across settlements and trading posts abroad. Comparing written accounts with experience led to annotations and borrowings that served as the basis for further writings. Company records and Knox's own unpublished works reveal how the Relation was used as the basis for bio-prospecting for naturally occurring drugs and food sources and in efforts at agricultural transplantation spanning the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Through the reports of seamen like Knox, such experiments contributed to contemporary theories concerning the effects of latitude on plant life

Ancient history · Archaeology · Business · Ceylon · Context (archaeology · Human settlement · Relation (database · Settlement (finance · Classics · Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies · History · History of Science and Medicine · History of Science and Natural History