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History General

Griffith Taylor

Visionary, Environmentalist, Explorer

by (author) Carolyn Strange & Alison Bashford

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Nov 2008
Category
General, General, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802096630
    Publish Date
    Nov 2008
    List Price
    $47.95

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Description

Thomas Griffith Taylor (1880-1963) was a geographer, anthropologist, and world explorer. His travels took him from Captain Scott's final expedition in Antarctica to every continent on earth, in a professional life that stretched from the Boer War to the Cold War. Taylor's research ranged from microscopic analysis of fossils to the "races of man," the geographic basis of global politics, while his work as a professor led him from his Cambridge education to the Universities of Chicago and Sydney, as well as Harold A. Innis' recently-founded geography department in the University of Toronto.

As a scientific secularist, Taylor made it his lifelong mission to enlighten the public on humankind's relation to the environment and was an early environmentalist. His progressive views on interracial marriage, as well as his criticisms of social Darwinist doctrines, anti-Semitism, and twentieth-century nationalism caused him to be constantly embroiled in controversy. Often dismissed by his contemporary political and intellectual opponents, many subsequent scientists and thinkers have come to regard his life as prophetic. This timely, beautifully produced, and copiously illustrated biography recounts and analyses the fascinating life of a remarkably contemporary man.

About the authors

Carolyn Strange is a senior fellow in the Research School of Humanities at the Australian National University.

Carolyn Strange's profile page

Allison Bashford is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Sydney.

Alison Bashford's profile page

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