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This title in other editionsTrying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Natureby D. Graham Burnett
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:In Moby-Dick, Ishmael declares, Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that a whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me. Few readers today know just how much argument Ishmael is waiving aside. In fact, Melville's antihero here takes sides in one of the great controversies of the early nineteenth century, one that ultimately had to be resolved in the courts of New York City. In Trying Leviathan, D. Graham Burnett recovers the strange story of Maurice v. Judd, an 1818 trial that pitted the new sciences of taxonomy against the then-popular (and biblically sanctioned) view that the whale was a fish. The immediate dispute was mundane: whether whale oil was fish oil and therefore subject to state inspection. But the trial fueled a sensational public debate in which nothing less than the order of nature, and how we know it, was at stake. Burnett vividly re-creates the trial, during which a parade of experts: pea-coated whalemen, pompous philosophers, Jacobin lawyers, took the witness stand, brandishing books, drawings, and anatomical reports, and telling tall tales from whaling voyages. Falling in the middle of the century between Linnaeus and Darwin, the trial dramatized a revolutionary period that saw radical transformations in the understanding of the natural world. Out went comfortable biblical categories, and in came new sorting methods based on the minutiae of interior anatomy, and louche details about the sexual behaviors of God's creatures. When leviathan breached in New York in 1818, this strange beast churned both the natural and social orders, and not everyone would survive. Review:"It's science itself that was put on trial in 1818 in a dispute over a $75 inspection fee, as related in this fascinating account. Burnett (Masters of All They Surveyed), director of Princeton's history of science program, illuminates the convergence of commerce, science and shifting views of the natural world and human exploitation of it. The case of Maurice v. Judd arose from merchant Samuel Judd's refusal to pay the inspector's fee on three casks of spermaceti oil, claiming inspection was required only for fish oil, not whale oil. The jury heard the case in a 'gloriously feisty public forum' as the Linnaean classification system was debated, with Samuel Latham Mitchill, a local 'patriarch of natural history,' testifying that the whale was indeed not a fish. The plaintiff's lawyers argued against a system that said whales, monkeys and humans were related, and raised the threat to civil order if scientists were allowed to interpret legal statutes. Burnett's look at the trial and its fallout adds a historical dimension to debates caused by science's role in the legal sphere, especially when it introduces new concepts. 16 pages of color illus., 19 b&w illus." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"Burnett describes the trial with the keen eye of an informed courtroom observer." Alexander Nazaryan, The Village Voice Review:"... offers a window on the often contentious world of taxonomy." Science News Review:"Burnett’s micro-history of the trial offers a careful archaeological study." Jerome de Groot, Financial Times Synopsis:"Graham Burnett's pathbreaking book teems with lively accounts of a notorious legal conflict between different kinds of people and different kinds of knowledge played out in New York in the early years of the nineteenth century. Disputes like these vividly illuminate the preoccupations of past societies and make us more conscious of our own. An important and thoroughly engaging book."--Janet Browne, author of Charles Darwin: The Power of Place "'Is a whale a fish?' Melville famously wrestled with the question in Moby-Dick, but as Graham Burnett reveals in Trying Leviathan, the question had already been argued in--of all places--a Manhattan courtroom in 1818. In addition to providing a fascinating and provocative look at the relationship between science and culture in early nineteenth-century New York, Burnett writes eloquently about how the whalemen regarded their mysterious and awe-inspiring prey. This is a fun, surprising, and, in the best sense, challenging book."--Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea "Trying Leviathan recounts a remarkable collision of science and law in a New York City courtroom in 1818. Burnett brilliantly parses the case both inside and outside the court, exploring the conflicts it aroused between learned taxonomists and sea-leathered whalers, practical businessmen and everyday citizens. A compelling, provocative work."--Daniel Kevles, Yale University "In this irresistible narrative, full of fascinating characters, Graham Burnett has given us a brilliant, imaginative, often amusing, wonderfully realized study that brings together questions of epistemology, the relation of observation to theory, the era's worship of nature and simultaneous commercial exploitation of it, claims of class to intellectual authority, and the relation of expertise to democracy."--Thomas Bender, New York University "I can't remember reading a more intelligent and well-written book than Graham Burnett's Trying Leviathan. He is a brilliant writer, and he has transformed a nineteenth-century legal battle over the taxonomic classification of whales into a wonderful and engaging book."--Richard Ellis, author of Men and Whales "Burnett shows the conflicted heart of nineteenth-century American science by looking at the complicated, amusing, and well-publicized trial of Maurice v. Judd, in which the question at stake was whether a whale is a fish. This makes a fascinating story, Burnett writes uncommonly well, and the final chapter is one of the most interesting pieces on popular science that I have ever read. Trying Leviathan is a powerful and brilliant addition to the history of American science and culture."--James Gilbert, University of Maryland About the AuthorD. Graham Burnett is associate professor of history at Princeton University and an editor at "Cabinet" magazine. His books include "Masters of All They Surveyed" and "A Trial by Jury". Table of ContentsList of Figures xi Chapter One: Introduction 1 The Peace Offering That Stank 1 Maurice v. Judd and the History of Science 5 From Dock to Docket 14 Chapter Two: Common Sense 19 Manhattan and Its Whales 19 Chapter Three: The Philosophical Whale 44 Samuel Latham Mitchill and Natural History in New York City 44 ?No More a Fish than a Man? 61 Taxonomy at the Bar 72 Chapter Four: Naturalists in the Crow?s Nest 95 What the Whalemen Knew 95 Chapter Five: Men of Affairs 145 The Whale in the Swamp ?145 Chapter Six: The Jury Steps Out 166 The Knickerbockers Slay a Yankee Whale 166 Who Decides Who Decides? 167 Picking Up the Pisces 178 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 190 New Science, New York, New Nation 190 Epilogue:Whales and Fish, Philosophers and Historians, Science and Society 210 Acknowledgments 223 Bibliography 225 Index 247 What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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