Empire Under the Microscope: Parasitology and the British Literary Imagination, 1885-1935

This book explores the cultural history of parasitology and its relationships with the literary and historical imagination between 1885 and 1935, using British Nobel laureate Ronald Ross and his colleagues as access points. It demonstrates how parasitologists manipulated literary and historical forms of knowledge to create a modern mythology that has a visible legacy in relationships between science and society today.

Format: Hardback
Length: 294 pages
Publication date: 27 November 2021
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This open-access book explores the intersection of science and empire, delving into the narratives we construct about these two powerful forces. Through the lens of British Nobel laureate Ronald Ross (1857-1932) and his colleagues, Empire Under the Microscope explores the cultural history of parasitology and its intricate relationships with the literary and historical imagination between 1885 and 1935. Emilie Taylor-Pirie conducts a comprehensive examination of a wealth of archival materials, encompassing medical lectures, scientific publications, popular biographies, personal and professional correspondence, alongside novels, poems, newspaper articles, and political speeches. By meticulously analyzing these diverse sources, Taylor-Pirie uncovers the shared vocabularies that permeated literature and medicine during this period. She demonstrates how forms such as poetry and biography, genres such as imperial romance and detective fiction, and modes such as adventure and the Gothic, converged to shape our understanding of tropical diseases, their parasites, and their vectors in relation to race, gender, and nation.

This exploration extends beyond the confines of academia, tracing the legacy of parasitology's manipulation of literary and historical forms of knowledge in the professional self-fashioning of parasitologists. From Ancient Greece to the knights of King Arthur, to the detective work of Sherlock Holmes, parasitologists have woven a modern mythology that continues to influence the relationships between science and society today.

Empire Under the Microscope offers a rich and multifaceted perspective on the complex interplay between science, empire, and the narratives we construct about them. It sheds light on the ways in which historical events and cultural narratives shape our understanding of the world, and challenges us to reevaluate our assumptions and beliefs. This book is a valuable contribution to the field of history, literature, and science, and will interest scholars, researchers, and anyone with an interest in the intersection of these three disciplines.

Weight: 559g
Dimension: 210 x 148 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783030847166
Edition number: 1st ed. 2022