Every Living Thing

Informationen zum Autor 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 Critic 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. Klappentext The sweeping, dramatic history of two scientific rivals and their mission to survey all lifea clash of ideas that had profound consequences for humanityfrom the bestselling author of A Sense of the World. 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 speciesor 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. With elegant, propulsive prose grounded in more than a decade of obsessive 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. Zusammenfassung The sweeping, dramatic history of two scientific rivals and their mission to survey all lifea clash of ideas that had profound consequences for humanityfrom the bestselling author of A Sense of the World. 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 speciesor 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 argu...

Autorentext
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. A contributor to McSweeney’s, The Believer, and other publications, he lives in Northern California.

Zusammenfassung
An epic, extraordinary account of scientific rivalry and obsession in the quest to survey all of life on Earth—a competition whose consequences still reverberate today—from the bestselling author of A Sense of the World

“[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.