Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781316519448)

The contentious science of phrenology once promised insight into character and intellect through external 'reading' of the head. In the transforming settler-colonial landscapes of nineteenth-century Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, popular phrenologists - figures who often hailed from the margins - performed their science of touch and cranial jargon everywhere from mechanics' institutions to public houses. In this compelling work, Alexandra Roginski recounts a history of this everyday practice, exploring how it featured in the fates of people living in, and moving through, the Tasman World. Innovatively drawing on historical newspapers and a network of archives, she traces the careers of a diverse range of popular phrenologists and those they encountered. By analysing the actions at play in scientific episodes through ethnographic, social and cultural history, Roginski considers how this now-discredited science could, in its own day, yield fleeting power and advantage, even against a backdrop of large-scale dispossession and social brittleness.

Author: Alexandra Roginski
ISBN-10: 1316519449
ISBN-13: 9781316519448
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 06/01/2023
Pages: 300
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.31lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.81d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2024