Johann Reinhold Forster and the Making of Natural History on Cook's Second Voyage, 1772–1775 by Anne Mariss

Abstract

Reviewed by: Johann Reinhold Forster and the Making of Natural History on Cook's Second Voyage, 1772–1775 by Anne Mariss Antoine Gallay Anne Mariss, Johann Reinhold Forster and the Making of Natural History on Cook's Second Voyage, 1772–1775 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019). Pp. 240. $100 cloth. Published in 2015, Anne Mariss's doctoral dissertation A world of new things": Praktiken der Naturgeschichte bei Johann Reinhold Forster was the first comprehensive study of the career of German naturalist and scholar Johann Reinhold Forster since Michael Hoare's biography published almost half a century ago. The book reviewed here is an extensively revised version of her dissertation's fourth chapter, whose translation from German to English has been made possible by a grant awarded by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels. This is a very welcome choice: not only does Mariss's new book offer a valuable study about an influential and yet overlooked figure, but it most crucially presents numerous insightful analyses of the way new knowledge in natural history was produced and processed during exploratory voyages. As the book's introduction reminds us, the development of natural history widely benefitted from travels outside Europe: discoveries were not just additions to an ever-growing knowledge, but they constantly reshaped the discipline itself. While this phenomenon has already been widely discussed, the various practices involved in knowledge-making aboard the ship still deserve to be investigated. In order to do so, Mariss was able to gather a vast amount of material, both textual and pictorial, which she has carefully dissected in this book. The two first chapters of the book are rather introductory. After a helpful synthesis of James Cook's three famous voyages of exploration, Mariss presents general issues on how knowledge was produced, processed, and transferred during long-distance voyages. In chapter 3, she turns to a closer analysis of the economic motivations behind the practice of natural history in a non-Western environment, and she stresses how the specific conditions of such travels could have led to the making of a distinctive scientific persona, whose traditional gentlemanly virtues were mingled with more heroic virtues. The way Forster shaped his own identity by distinguishing himself from seamen is further studied in chapter 4. It covers the way seamen's knowledge contributed to the naturalists' scientific endeavors. While naturalists heavily relied on seamen to identify the properties of local flora and fauna as well as understand the languages and cultures of indigenous peoples, they also had to clearly distinguish their own thoroughly-processed knowledge from the seamen's heterogeneous one. Chapter 5 focuses on the specific relationship developed between seamen, naturalists, and local peoples through the exchange of curiosities. Because of their commercial value, artifacts and natural rarities were avidly sought by the entire crew: officers began to collect them as a hobby, seamen expected to sell them back in Europe or directly on the ship, and naturalists complained that this craze impeded them from gathering many unknown objects. Again, Forster was prompt to distinguish the laymen's greedy accumulations from his own virtuous practices of collecting. However, Mariss accurately stresses that the exchange and display of rarities also played a crucial role in shaping Forster's social network (as well as this chapter, see 183–187). In order to understand the function of the various objects collected, naturalists such as Forster heavily relied on local informants, as is further discussed in chapter 6. The difficulties in understanding the characteristics [End Page 564] of various local specimens and communicating with indigenous peoples were partly removed thanks to the crucial role of some knowledgeable Polynesians, such as the famous Tupaia during Cook's first voyage, or Hitihiti with whom Forster got closely acquainted. While local knowledge was far from being neglected, it needed to be carefully refashioned to be considered legitimate and ready for use in Europe. Chapter 7 is devoted to the various practices involved in the identification of observed specimens. When specimens could not be classified in preexisting categories, they were considered members of new species whose names had to be coined and quickly made available to other naturalists in Europe. The issues raised by the...