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PETER C. MANCALL ON ROBERT PLOT'S NATURAL HISTORY OF OXFORD-SHIRE
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DONALD WORSTER began his history of ecological thought in the West with an essay on the English pastor Gilbert White and his frequently reprinted Natural History ofSelborne. That was a logical place to start, especially given that White's book had the virtue of being a work of literature as well as empirical science.1 Yet a century before White published his history of Selborne in 1789, an Oxford-trained scholar named Robert Plot wrote The Natural History of Oxford-Shire, Being an Essay toward the Natural History of England. Published in Oxford in 1677, the book included sixteen carefully ...
