JUST AS SCIENCE isn't only done with the head, but also with the hands, it also isn't only done in the library or the laboratory, but also in the field and the museum gallery. Beginning in the 16th century and prompted in large part by the opening of trade routes to Africa, Asia, and America, Europeans embarked on a wide-ranging program of scientific exploration, collection, and exhibition. Underlying this program was the notion that nature's secrets could best be grasped by bringing all of nature together under one roof.

While this program of exploration, collection, and exhibition led to new scientific discoveries and bequeathed to us some of the Western world's most cherished cultural institutions including the museum, the encyclopedia, and the World's Fair, it also helped to distort European notions of the things and peoples on display there. Taking objects from Africa, Asia, or America -- or simply out of their natural setting in the European countryside -- and placing them in glasses cases in an urban museum inevitably changed the way they were viewed and what they meant to viewers. Many of the earliest "museums" were little more than coffeehouses filled with exotic wall hangings and knick-knacks brought back from customers' travels. Many others were personal "cabinets of curiosity" kept in private homes. Later many of these impromptu collections formed the basis for the large, national museums that remain with us today. But in all cases, taking objects from their natural surroundings, isolating them from their original context, and putting them on display in a museum allowed Europeans to redifine these objects and the places and peoples from which they were taken. In this way, museums, World's Fairs, and even encyclopedias helped distort Europeans' ideas about the rest of the world and in many cases helped support imperialist policies and racist notions.

Please begin this week by reading Chapters 14-15 of your textbook. Then read Sir Francis Bacon's early 17th century allegory, The New Atlantis. Next examine this description of the real-life collection of John Tradescant, a London gardener and botanist and rough contemporary of Bacon. When you are finished, please click here for your online exercise.