| Description |
xiv, 266 pages, 16 unnumbered pages plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Introduction -- Common sense -- The philosophical whale -- Naturalists in the crow's nest -- Men of affairs -- The jury steps out -- Conclusion |
| Summary |
"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."--BOOK JACKET |
| Notes |
Formerly CIP. Uk |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Subject |
Sampson, William, 1764-1836. Is a whale a fish?
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Judd, Samuel, 1780-1847 -- Trials, litigation, etc.
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Maurice, James, active 1818 -- Trials, litigation, etc.
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Trials (Tax evasion) -- New York (State) -- New York -- History -- 19th century.
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Whale oil -- Taxation -- Law and legislation -- New York (State) -- History -- 19th century.
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Whales -- Classification -- History -- 19th century.
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Whaling -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Zoology -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Whales -- Classification.
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Animal rights -- New York (State) -- New York.
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Speciesism.
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| Genre/Form |
Trial and arbitral proceedings.
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| LC no. |
2007008378 |
| ISBN |
9780691129501 cased |
|
0691129509 cased |
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