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Society for the History of Natural History


Awards, Honours and Medals

SHNH Book Prize


Society for the History of Natural History Book Prize 2024

John Thackray Medal

The prize is awarded for the best book published on the history or bibliography of natural history in the preceding two years.

Closing date is 30 June 2024.

Winners receive the John Thackray Medal, instituted in 2000 to commemorate the life and work of John Thackray (1948–1999), Past President of SHNH, and an outstanding scholar of the history of science with an enviable knowledge of natural history. He served as an Officer of the Society for the History of Natural History for 24 years (1973–1997) and in 1999 became the Society’s President. He authored 30 books and articles including Guide to the Official Archives of the Natural History Museum (1998). 

Guidelines

  • Prize winners are chosen by a panel of 3 judges (all members of the Society).
  • Competition opens on 1 January 2024.
  • Nominations may be made by SHNH members, or submitted by publishers.
  • All books must be received by 30 June. Three copies of the book you wish to considered should be sent to the Chair of the Book Prize Panel.  Contact  Geraldine.Reid@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk to obtain the Chair’s name and address.
  • All books should have been published in the two calendar years preceding the year the award will be presented. For instance, works published in 2022 and 2023 will be eligible for the 2024 award.

Selection Criteria

The prize will be awarded to the book which contributes most significantly to the history of natural history. Significance will be assessed on the basis of:

  • Originality
  • Organisation and presentation of information
  • Excellence of intellectual content
  • Contribution to the literature of the field.

Submission

 Nominations must be sent to the Chair of the Book Prize Panel and include the following:

  • Your name as a nominator and your contact details.
  • The nominee’s name and contact details.
  • A supporting statement (up to 600 words) describing why the nominee should receive the award.

Download 2024 nomination form.


SHNH Natural History Book Prize 2023

The Society is very pleased to announce that our prestigious Natural History Book Prize (the John Thackray Medal) will this year be awarded to Nicholas K. Menzies for Ordering the Myriad Things: From Traditional Knowledge to Scientific Botany in China (University of Washington Press, ISBN: 9780295749457). Nicholas K. Menzies is Research Fellow in Chinese Botanical Science at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California.

Ordering the Myriad Things relates how traditional knowledge of plants in China gave way to scientific botany between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, when plants came to be understood in a hierarchy of taxonomic relationships to other plants and within a broader ecological context. This shift not only expanded the universe of plants beyond the familiar to encompass unknown species and geographies but fuelled a new knowledge of China itself. Nicholas K. Menzies highlights the importance of botanical illustration as a tool for recording nature—contrasting how images of plants were used in the past to the conventions of scientific drawing and investigating the transition of “traditional” systems of organization, classification, observation, and description to “modern” ones.

The book explores the fascinating development of modern Chinese botany focusing on the transition from traditional knowledge to modern scientific practice. One judge praised the accessible glossary of places, names, and botanical terms which is in both Chinese and English. The judges felt this was a well-researched scholarly study of an important part of the history of botany and added to our limitedknowledge of scientific development in China.

Nicholas said: ‘What an extraordinary surprise! I am deeply honoured … that you have chosen to  select my book from what, I am sure, was a remarkable group of works, to receive this important prize. Thank you’.

For those interested in reading more about Ordering the Myriad Things: From Traditional Knowledge to Scientific Botany in China you can access a recent review by Jiang Che in the Society’s Journal Archives of Natural History: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/anh.2023.0882

 

The Society for the History of Natural History Book Prize

Painting by Numbers: The life and art of Ferdinand Bauer by David J Mabberley (NewSouth Publishing 2017).

The Correspondence of Dr. Martin Lister (1639-1712). Volume One: 1662-1677 by Anne-Marie Roos (Brill 2015)

The Lord Treasurer of Botany: Sir James Edward Smith and the Linnaean Collections by Tom Kennett (Linnean Society of London, 2016).

 

  • 2023
Nicholas K. Menzies
Ordering the Myriad Things: From Traditional Knowledge to Scientific Botany in China (University of Washington Press, 2021)
  • 2022
Henrietta McBurney
Illuminating natural history: the art and science of Mark Catesby (Paul Mellon Centre for
Studies in British Art, 2021).
  • 2021
Jordan Goodman Planting the World: Joseph Banks and his Collectors: An Adventurous History of Botany (Harper Collins, 2021).
  • 2019
David J. Mabberley Painting by Numbers: The life and art of Ferdinand Bauer
(NewSouth Publishing, 2017).
  • 2017
Anna Marie Roos The Correspondence of Dr Martin Lister (1639-1667). Vol.1: (1662-1667)
(Brill, 2015).
  • 2016
Tom Kennett The Lord Treasurer of Botany: Sir James Edward Smith and the Linnaean Collections  (Linnean Society of London, 2016).
  • 2015
Mary Terrall Catching Nature in the Act: Réaumur and the Practice of Natural History in the Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2014).
  • 2014
E. C. Dickinson,
L.K. Overstreet, R. J. Dowsett
& M. D. Bruce
Priority! The Dating of Scientific Names in Ornithology
(Aves Press, 2011).
  • 2013
Alexandra Cook Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Botany: The salutary science
(The Voltaire Foundation, 2012).
  • 2012
Philip H. Oswald & Christopher D. Preston (trans & eds)
John Ray’s Cambridge Catalogue (1660)
(Ray Society, 2011).
  • 2010
The Biodiversity Heritage Library The Biodiversity Heritage Library.
The Biodiversity Heritage Library improves research methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community.
  • 2009
Charlie Jarvis  Order out of Chaos: Linnaean plant names and their types
(Linnean Society of London, 2007).
  • 2008
University of Cambridge The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online Project
  • 2006
Peter Marren
 The New Naturalists (2nd Edition)
(Collins New Naturalist Library, Book 82) (Collins, 2005).
  • 2005
David E. Allen
& Gabrielle Hatfield
Medicinal Plants in Folk tradition: An ethnobotany of Britain and Ireland
(Timber Press, 2004).
  • 2004
The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, USA Stuffing Birds, Pressing Plants, Shaping Knowledge: Natural History in North America, 1730-1860. Exhibition, together with web site, catalogue, accompanying educational materials, and programme of school events.
  • 2003
Clemency Fisher
The Earl & the Pussycat Exhibition and associated publication
A Passion for Natural History:The Life and Legacy of the 13th Earl of Derby
(Liverpool University Press, 2002).
  • 2002
T. G. Valance, David T. Moore & Eric W. Groves Nature’s Investigator. The Diary of Robert Brown in Australia, 1801–1805
(Australian Biological Resources Study (Flora), 2001).
  • 2001
Karl Schulze-Hagen
& Amin Geus
 Joseph Wolf. Exhibition and accompanying publication
Joseph Wolf:(1820-1899): Animal Painter / Tiermaler
(Basilisk Press, 2001).
  • 2000
Tony Rice & Natural History Museum, London
Voyages of Discovery. Exhibition and accompanying book
Voyages of Discovery
(Natural History Museum, London, 2001).