This paper discusses the political dimension of Odón de Buen's (1863–1945) expository practices—teaching and popularizing—as a university professor of natural history in Barcelona and later in Madrid at the turn of the nineteenth century. De Buen appropriated Ernst Haeckel's ideas on evolution in order to promote an ambitious political agenda, based on republican, freethinking, anticlerical values. To that end, he moved beyond the confines of academic science within the university and sought to bring modern concepts of natural history into elementary schools, athenaeums, political clubs and associations, scientific trips, popular books, periodicals, and the daily press. In such places, de Buen's natural history acted as an intellectual weapon with which to confront the conservative monarchic attitudes of the Spanish Restoration, but it also provided a moral backing to a society, which felt backward in terms of science and technology and was desperately seeking new sources of inspiration and national pride.
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June 2012
Research Article|
June 01 2012
A Republican Natural History in Spain around 1900: Odón Buen (1863–1945) and His Audiences
Agustí Nieto-Galan
Agustí Nieto-Galan
Centre d’Història de la Ciència (CEHIC), Facultat de Ciències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain; agusti.nieto@uab.cat.
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Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (2012) 42 (3): 159–189.
Citation
Agustí Nieto-Galan; A Republican Natural History in Spain around 1900: Odón Buen (1863–1945) and His Audiences. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 1 June 2012; 42 (3): 159–189. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/hsns.2012.42.3.159
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