Overview

I specialise in the history of science and the environment (roughly from 1780-1850). I am particularly interested in how eighteenth-century efforts to develop statistical approaches land management, food production, and to understand the natural wealth of countries informed present-day ideas about food security, environment, and global food markets. My forthcoming book explores the global and imperial reach of Britain's first Board of Agriculture (founded in 1793). I am also interested in contemporary debates over food security, crop genetic diversity, and conservation. 

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Research

• History of Science
• Environmental History
• Global and Imperial History
• History of food security
• History of racial science
• History of heredity & genetics

Research collaborations

In 2020, I collaborated with economists at Frontier Economics to produce research on the relationship between genetic crop diversity and efforts to combat crop diseases. I am currently working with colleagues at the Botanic Gardens at the University of Oxford to develop a project on the history of the Green Revolution.

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Supervision

I would be very happy to hear from students interested in researching topics related to:

• Science and the public, c.1700-1950
• Environmental history
• History of food security
• The history of racial science & eugenics
• Citizenship and science, c.1780-1950

Please send a CV and an outline (no more than 500 words) of your proposed topic.

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Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2024 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |

2024

• Lidwell-Durnin J, Roy-Di Piazza V. (2024) Desire, Marriage, and Overpopulation: The Sexual Lives of Insects in the Enlightenment, Revue de synthèse, volume 145, pages 1-36, DOI:10.1163/19552343-14234052.

2022

• Lidwell-Durnin J. (2022) Climat, maladies des plantes et acclimatation: l'influence de l'agriculture sur les attitudes et les idées environnementales (1764-1800), Dix-huitieme siecle, volume 54, pages 377-391, DOI:10.3917/dhs.054.0377.
• Lidwell-Durnin J. (2022) War, Wheat, and Crop Diseases of the Late Enlightenment: Contesting and Producing Evidence in Agriculture in Great Britain, Evidence in Action between Science and Society, Routledge, 21-41, DOI:10.4324/9781003188612-3. [PDF]
• Lidwell-Durnin J. (2022) War, Wheat, and Crop Diseases of the Late Enlightenment: Contesting and Producing Evidence in Agriculture in Great Britain, Evidence in Action between Science and Society, Routledge.
• Lidwell-Durnin J. (2022) Plague, Crisis, and Scientific Authority during the London Caterpillar Outbreak of 1782, The Historical Journal, volume 66, no. 1, pages 49-71, DOI:10.1017/s0018246x22000048. [PDF]

2021

• Lidwell-Durnin J. (2021) Rebecca Earle, Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. 308. ISBN 978-1-1086-8845-1. £17.99 (hardback), The British Journal for the History of Science, volume 54, no. 2, pages 242-244, DOI:10.1017/s0007087421000467.
• Lidwell-Durnin J. (2021) Global histories of science: practice, belief, and materials Materials of the mind: phrenology, race, and the global history of science, 1815–1920 , by James Poskett, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2019, 373 pp., $45.00 (Hardback), ISBN: 9780226626758, Global Intellectual History, volume 6, no. 2, pages 135-141, DOI:10.1080/23801883.2021.1892910. [PDF]

2020

• Lidwell-Durnin J, Lapthorn A. (2020) The threat to global food security from wheat rust: ethical and historical issues in fighting crop diseases and preserving genetic diversity, Global Food Security, volume 26, pages 100446-100446, article no. 100446, DOI:10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100446. [PDF]
• LIDWELL-DURNIN J. (2020) Cultivating famine: data, experimentation and food security, 1795–1848, The British Journal for the History of Science, volume 53, no. 2, pages 159-181, DOI:10.1017/s0007087420000199. [PDF]

2019

• Lidwell-Durnin J. (2019) William Benjamin Carpenter and the Emerging Science of Heredity, Journal of the History of Biology, volume 53, no. 1, pages 81-103, DOI:10.1007/s10739-019-09568-3. [PDF]

2018

• Lidwell-Durnin J. (2018) Janet Browne (ed.), The Quotable Darwin. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018. Pp. xxix + 348. ISBN 978-0-691-16935-4. $24.95 (hardcover), The British Journal for the History of Science, volume 51, no. 4, pages 711-713, DOI:10.1017/s0007087418000870. [PDF]
• Lidwell-Durnin J. (2018) The production of a physiological puzzle: how Cytisus adami confused and inspired a century’s botanists, gardeners, and evolutionists, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, volume 40, no. 3, article no. 48, DOI:10.1007/s40656-018-0207-0. [PDF]
• Lidwell-Durnin J. (2018) Inevitable Decay: Debates over Climate, Food Security, and Plant Heredity in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Journal of the History of Biology, volume 52, no. 2, pages 271-292, DOI:10.1007/s10739-018-9550-y. [PDF]

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External impact and engagement

Media

Interview, 'The Great Caterpillar Outbreak of 1782', Dan Snow's History Hit, ep.1280, 13 Sep 2023

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Teaching

Modules taught

• HIH1422 - Understanding Modern History
• HIH1615 - Imperial Science, Race, and Exploration in the Long 19th Century
• HIH3635 - The Population Problem: Conservation, Eugenics, and Food in the Twentieth Century: Context

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