Research Catalog

Title

Visions of the future : almanacs, time, and cultural change, 1775-1870 / Maureen Perkins.

Author

Perkins, Maureen.

Publication

Oxford ; New York : Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 270 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

• Historians have long puzzled over the 'death' of astrology at the end of the seventeenth century. Visions of the Future demonstrates that astrology was alive and well for much of the nineteenth century, finding expression in one of the best-selling items of popular literature, the almanac. It examines the contents of the most notorious almanacs, such as Moore's and Poor Robin, publications which provide a colourful entry into popular culture and which suggest that a belief in the possibility of seeing the future was widespread.
• The book goes on to discuss why all claims to predict the future, including those of astrology, became categorized as 'superstition'. It argues that this development was linked to two major cultural changes: the rise of statistical discourse and the dominance of Newtonian time. Statistical forecasting achieved the status of a 'science' at the same time as 'visions' of the future were being marginalized. This examination of the substitution of one type of knowledge for another makes an important contribution to our understanding of the interaction between different levels of culture during a period when the boundaries between 'high' and 'low' cultures were becoming increasingly impassable.

Subject

• Almanacs > History
• Almanacs, Australian > History
• Future, The, in popular culture > History
• Forecasting > History
• Calendars > History
• Almanacs
• Almanacs, Australian
• Calendars
• Forecasting
• Future, The, in popular culture
• Astrologie
• Almanakken
• Voorspellingen

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p.250-264) and index.

Contents

1. Almanacs, Astrology, and the Stationers' Company -- 2. The Birth of the Statistical Almanac and the Assault on Superstition -- 3. Almanacs and Prophecy -- 4. Comic Almanacs -- 5. Australian Almanacs and Popular Culture -- 6. The Parent of a Hundred Superstitions -- Conclusion: Appropriating the Calendar -- App. I. English Stock 1801.

ISBN

• 0198121784
• 9780198121787

LCCN

96016985

OCLC

• ocm34545970
• 34545970
• SCSB-14467051

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library