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SUMMARY:Global Geology and the Tectonics of Empire - Professor Jim Secord\
 , University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20161109T173000Z
DTEND:20161109T190000Z
UID:TALK66987@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Clare Kitcat
DESCRIPTION:What does it mean to be ‘global’? In the decades around 19
 00\, the answer to that question emerged through the natural sciences\, an
 d especially in geology.  The era of high imperialism witnessed an unprece
 dented outpouring of attempts to explain the history and structure of the 
 Earth.  These drew upon long-standing colonial surveys\, which used Europe
 an standards to develop a global strata sequence.  The new syntheses also 
 relied upon results from oceanographic surveys\, telegraph networks\, and 
 seismological stations to understand the structure of mountains\, the char
 acter of ocean basins\, and the nature of the planet's interior.  This tal
 k examines the rise of theorizing about the Earth in the context of fin-de
 -siècle liberal imperialism.   Theories were formulated in diverse places
 \, in academic centres and at the heart of the great empires\, from Vienna
  to Beijing.  The most significant synthesis\, Eduard Suess's Das Antlitz 
 der Erde (The Face of the Earth\, 1885-1909) elaborated a perspective draw
 n from the collections in the natural history museum on the Vienna Ringstr
 asse and the high Alpine peaks of the late Hapsburg Empire.  The Prussian 
 geophysicist Alfred Wegener's  theory of continental drift\, first publish
 ed in 1912\, was originally an idiosyncratic contribution to the ongoing d
 ebate about a global science of the Earth.  In the interwar era\, drift be
 came increasingly attractive\, especially among increasingly confident col
 onial geologists.  After 1945 the flowering of imperial geology was largel
 y forgotten\, but Wegener's speculations offered a connecting link with th
 e new phase of instrument-based\, ocean-based theorizing during the Cold W
 ar\, which culminated in the plate tectonics revolution of the 1960s.
LOCATION:Yusuf Hamied Theatre\, Christ's College
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