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). "[A] vibrant scientific saga . . . at once important, outrageous, enlightening, entertaining, enduring, and still evolving."--Dava Sobel, author of Longitude In the eighteenth century, two men--exact contemporaries and polar opposites--dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. 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. Each began his task believing it to be difficult but not impossible: How could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species--or as many could fit on Noah's Ark?
Both fell far short of their goal, but in the process they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, the future of the Earth, and humanity itself. Linnaeus gave the world such concepts as
mammal, primate, and
Homo sapiens, but he also denied that species change and he promulgated racist pseudoscience. Buffon formulated early prototypes of evolution and genetics, warned of global climate change, and argued passionately against prejudice. The clash of their conflicting worldviews continued well after their deaths, as their successors contended for dominance in the emerging science that came to be called
biology.
In
Every Living Thing, Jason Roberts weaves a sweeping, unforgettable narrative spell, exploring the intertwined lives and legacies of Linnaeus and Buffon--as well as the groundbreaking, often fatal adventures of their acolytes--to trace an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.
Author: Jason Roberts
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Published: 04/09/2024
Pages: 432
Weight: 1.6lbs
Size: 9.29h x 6.30w x 1.73d
ISBN: 9781984855206
Review Citation(s): Publishers Weekly 01/22/2024
Booklist 02/01/2024 pg. 7
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2024
About the AuthorJason Roberts is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. His previous book,
A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler, was a national bestseller and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A contributor to
McSweeney's, The Believer, and other publications, he lives in Northern California.