Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Jehanne-Emmanuelle Monnier. Profession explorateur: Alfred Grandidier, 1836–1921.

2019; Oxford University Press; Volume: 124; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ahr/rhz954

1937-5239

Christopher M. Church,

Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis

Jehanne-Emmanuelle Monnier’s Profession explorateur: Alfred Grandidier, 1836–1921 narrates the life and voyages of Alfred Grandidier, a French naturalist who traveled the colonial world documenting animal species, taking plant specimens, and interacting with local cultures. Most famous for his writings on Madagascar, Grandidier was, as Monnier makes clear, a polymath well known for his naturalistic observations. Profession explorateur thus provides an intricately detailed biography of Grandidier and his scientific practice: the story of a male adventurer and his voyages, exploits and all. In doing so, Monnier paints a picture of late nineteenth-century science as fundamentally predicated upon a pseudo-aristocratic hierarchy, with “self-made” practitioners of privilege romping through the colonies in the name of discovery. Reading as a bildungsroman of Grandidier as a great explorer, scientist, and mentor, Profession explorateur is split into two parts. The first half of the book deals with the formation of Grandidier as a naturalist-explorer, covering his training, preparations, and voyages to the Americas, India, and Madagascar up to 1870—a date important to Monnier not only for the creation of the French Third Republic, but also because it marked Grandidier’s maturation and transformation into a “laboratory man who analyzes his data and then methodically builds his scientific discourse and theories” (123; my translation, here and for all quotes in the review). Picking up in 1871, the second half of the book concerns Grandidier’s return to Paris under the Third Republic and his “sedentary” life as “l’explorateur sédentarisé” (in the title to part 2). During this post-maturation phase, he proved formative in late nineteenth-century French science by participating in learned societies, building a scientific network, and mentoring young explorers (namely his son, Guillaume, who would carry on his research in Madagascar). It is this second half of the book that I find most interesting, for it documents how an individual’s research became embedded in discursive and correspondence networks; it explores how an individual’s self-promotion influenced an academic field; and it traces how colonial science resonated throughout metropolitan academic circles and professional institutions like the French National Museum of Natural History.