Science and Place 391of what might be called botanical imperialism.^45 Burgeoning under the
vegetative booty brought back by men like Joseph Banks, they became
centers of a worldwide network of plant acquisition and exchange no less
for commercial gain as for scientifi c inquiry.
In these different sites, scientifi c inquiry rotated around matters to do
with the acquisition of specimens—whether plant, animal, or human—
and their exhibition in specifi ed spaces. Science in these locations was
about the ordered display of the natural world shaped by the dictates of
scientifi c theory and taxonomy. The kinds of investigation that went on
there were different in crucial respects from those in either the laboratory
or the fi eld. But in all three, the place of investigation mattered to the ac-
tivities engaged in. This does not mean that experimental, expeditionary,
and exhibitionary spaces were mutually exclusive arenas. To the contrary,
botanical gardens could have their own laboratories, and fi eld workers
often took mobile labs with them on their expeditions. To that degree
a single site might be polysemic—a composite of different spatialities.
But taken overall, laboratory science, museum science, and fi eld science
name rather different species of scientifi c endeavor. In important ways,
this is because the production of these spaces has necessarily gone hand
in hand with the production of scientifi c knowledge. And the same is true
of the consumption sector of scientifi c enterprises—a subject to which we
now turn.
REGION, READING, AND RECEPTION
Just as scientifi c knowledge is produced in a variety of places, so too the
results of scientifi c inquiry are received in different venues. Here I want
to advertise something of the signifi cance of place in the consumption of
science by dwelling on the geographies of reading and the management
of textual space.
Ideas and instruments, texts and theories, individuals and inventions
all diffuse across the surface of Earth. But they do not diffuse evenly across
the globe. Thanks to the research of Owen Gingerich, we are beginning
to learn something of the diffusion of Copernicanism across seventeenth-
century Europe.^46 By tracing both the 1543 Nuremberg and 1566 Basel
editions of De Revolutionibus and locating copies that were altered on ac-
count of the papal decree of 1616, Gingerich has been able to identify
where unexpurgated and censored versions of the treatise turned up. The
results disclose an uneven geography. While most Italian copies were cen-
sored, the Decree of the Holy Congregation had relatively little impact