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Matthew Fontaine Maury, Father of Oceanography: A Biography, 1806-1873 * John Grady * Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2015 * vii, 354 pp. * $45.00
Matthew Fontaine Maury has not been subject to as substantial a body of research as one might expect, and the existing bibliography of historical work on Maury has tended to simplify his life and work. Traditionally, he has been celebrated for his contributions to the development of the scientific fields of meteorology and oceanography and remembered as "the Pathfinder of the Seas." Unfortunately, this legacy has obscured the complexities that make Maury such an interesting and significant figure.
Although an officer in the U.S. Navy and a significant figure in the Confederate government, Maury's career was largely spent away from the battlefield and devoted to...