Every Living Thing
BOOK SUMMARY
In the eighteenth century, two men dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Their approaches, however, 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 task 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? Stunned by life's diversity, both fell far short of their goal. But in the process, they articulated starkly divergent views on nature and on humanity itself.
The rivalry between these two unique, driven individuals created reverberations that still echo today. Linnaeus, with the help of acolytes he called "apostles," 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, and shape our scientific understanding of the world today.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason 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. He is the inaugural winner of the Van Zorn Prize (awarded by Michael Chabon), and a contributor to McSweeney's, The Believer, and other publications. He lives in Northern California.
PRAISE
"[An] engaging and thought-provoking book, one focused on the theatrical politics and often deeply troubling science that shape our definitions of life on Earth." —The New York Times
"A fluent and engaging account of the 18th-century origins of Darwinism before Darwin." —The Wall Street Journal
"An entertaining compendium of fascinating facts." —The Spectator
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Trade paperback
432 pages
Non-fiction
8 in H | 5.2 in W | 0.9 in T | 0.7 lb
