Bringing it all Back Home: Portuguese Engineers and their Travels of Learning (...

• Author(s): Matos, Ana Cardoso de ; Diogo, Maria Paula
• Date: 2007
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10174/2400
• Origin: Repositório Científico da Universidade de Évora
• Subject(s): Engenharia; história da tecnologia; circulação de conhecimentos
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English
• Editor(s): Institute of Social Sciences (ICS) - University of Lisbon; Interuniversitary Centre for the History of Science and Technology (CIHCT) – Faculty of Sciences (University of Lisbon) and Faculty of Sciences and Technology (New University of Lisbon); Interdisciplinary Centre for History, Cultures and Society (CIDEHUS) – University of Évora.

Description

During the 19th century travels of learning became more and more focused, within a framework of a growing professionalisation and specialisation of sciences and technology. The dilettante and the polymath of the 18th century gave place to the professional man; the uncompromising travel diaries and notebooks gave place to the technical and scientific report or the textbook; the concept of learning itself swift from a general approach to a well circumscribed field of expertise. It is within this context of the growing specialisation of both the travel and the travellers that the travels of Portuguese engineers during the 19th century will be examined in this paper.