Syllabus:
Week One: Intro to Natural History, with its origins in botany
Week Two: Collectors, Cabinets of Curiosity, and Museums
Week Three: Comparative Anatomy and Zoology
Week Four: Human Anatomy and Medicine
Week Five: Ornithology
Week Six: Entomology
Week Seven: Marine Life
Week Eight: Geometry in Nature
Recommended Reading:
These are just a few of my favorite books on natural history. PLEASE support your local bookstore whenever possible.
The Great Naturalists, edited by Robert Huxley, pub. Thames and Hudson
Invention of Nature; Alexander von Humboldt's New World, by Andrea Wulf, pub. by Knopf
King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild
Under a Wild Sky: John James Audobon and the Making of Birds of America, by William Souder, pub. by North Point Press
David Attenborough: Amazing Rare Things, Owens, Clayton, and Alexandratos, pub. by Kales Press
Images of Nature; The Bauer Brothers, Paul M. Cooper, pub. by Natural History Museum
A Garden Eden: Masterpieces of Botanical Illustration, ed. by Walter Lack, pub. by Taschen
Explorers of the Amazon, by Anthony Smith, pub. by Viking
Naming Nature, Carol Kaesuk Yoon, pub. by Norton
Discovering the Mammoth, by John McKay, pub. by Pegasus books
Maria Sibylla Merian, by S. Pomeroy and J. Kathirithamby, publ by Getty Publications
Great American Hall of Wonders, Claire Perry, pub. by Giles
Charles Willson Peale and his World, by E. Richardson, B. Hindle, and L. Miller, pub. by Abrams