A History of Curiosity

Download or read book A History of Curiosity written by Justin Stagl and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2002. A History of Curiosity examines the early methodology of anthropological and social research from a critical­historical perspective. The three principal methods of research, travel, the survey and the collection of significant objects, are studied in the context of the social conditions and intellectual trends of early modern times. The author's grasp of the vast, often obscure, but highly interesting body of literature which emerged in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries commands the attention of a wide readership outside purely academic boundaries. He weaves together a series of separate studies, emphasising links between the figures, the philosophies and the literatures of early modern times; links which have previously only been suspected. In focussing on the ars apodemica, or art of travelling'', a body of formal instructions on how to travel, observe and record the information gathered, the author demonstrates the origins of the characteristic inquisitive and systematizing spirit of the modern West.