Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review“Richly archival and powerful in its conceptions, Mee’s
Networks of Improvement boldly goes where few literary historians have been before, into the heartlands of industrializing Britain for a magisterially orchestrated and methodologically groundbreaking study. Mee has given us a picture of British intellectual and social relationships that will stand unmatched for a long time to come.” * Jon Klancher, Carnegie Mellon University *
“Mee offers a sophisticated account of reading as a social practice central to the circulation of knowledge, both grand and granular, responsive to large questions with local particularities.
Networks of Improvement is comprehensive, clearly written, and carefully organized.” * Jonathan Sachs, Concordia University *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Part One: Networks and Institutions
1 Power, Knowledge, and Literature
2 The Collision of Mind with Mind: Manchester and Newcastle, 1781–1823
3 Improvement Redux: Liverpool, Leeds, and Sheffield, 1812–32
Part Two: Bodies and Machines
4 Three Physicians around Manchester
5 Hannah Greg’s Domestic Mission
6 An Inventive Age
7 Lives, Damned Lives, and Statistics
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
