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An epic, extraordinary account of scientific rivalry and obsession in the quest to survey all of life on Earth—a competition "with continued repercussions for Western views of race. [This] vivid double biography is a passionate corrective" (The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice)
From the bestselling author of A Sense of the World comes this dramatic, globe-spanning and meticulously researched story of two scientific rivals and their race to survey all life on Earth.
In the 18th century, two men dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Their approaches could not have been more different. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster's flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France's royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities. Both began believing their work to be difficult, but not impossible—how could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species? Stunned by life's diversity, both fell far short of their goal. But in the process they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, on humanity's role in shaping the fate of our planet and on humanity itself.
The rivalry between these two unique, driven individuals created reverberations that still echo today. Linnaeus, with the help of acolyte explorers he called "apostles" (only half of whom returned alive), gave the world such concepts as mammal, primate and homo sapiens—but he also denied species change and promulgated racist pseudo-science. Buffon coined the term reproduction, formulated early prototypes of evolution and genetics, and argued passionately against prejudice. It was a clash that, during their lifetimes, Buffon seemed to be winning. But their posthumous fates would take a very different turn.
With elegant, propulsive prose grounded in more than a decade of research, featuring appearances by Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin and Charles Darwin, bestselling author Jason Roberts tells an unforgettable true-life tale of intertwined lives and enduring legacies, tracing an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 9, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780307374585
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780307374585
- File size: 25055 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 22, 2024
This enlightening history by science writer Roberts (A Sense of the World) explores research conducted by 18th-century naturalists Carl Linnaeus and George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, who competed against “each other to complete a comprehensive accounting of life on Earth.” Roberts skillfully describes the methodological, philosophical, and political differences between the two, explaining that Linnaeus’s Christian faith led him to believe that species were fixed and created divinely, while Buffon embraced more heretical ideas, which led him to propose a rudimentary understanding of evolution and face “formal charges of blasphemy for suggesting the Earth might be older than Scripture indicated.” Despite the subtitle, there’s not much in the way of swashbuckling adventures to distant lands in search of unknown species (Linnaeus and Buffon acquired their specimens largely by purchasing them from other collectors or dispatching to foreign countries acolytes who sometimes died of disease). Instead, Roberts provides a thorough accounting of the divergent outlooks of his dual subjects and offers illuminating insight into how politics secured Linnaeus’s legacy while consigning Buffon to relative obscurity. (During the French Revolution, followers of Linnaeus took advantage of Buffon’s inherited status as a count and connections to King Louis XVI, who contributed funding to Buffon’s research, to pillory the naturalist as part of the ancíen régíme.) The result is an enthralling look at a pivotal period in the history of biology. Photos. Agent: Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management.
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