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Every living thing : the great and deadly race to know all life / Jason Roberts.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Random House, [2024]Copyright date: ©2024Edition: First editionDescription: xiv, 407 pages : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781984855206
  • 1984855204
Other title:
  • Great and deadly race to know all life
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction. Savants -- Prelude. The mask and the veil -- Part I. The great chain of being. Of the Linden tree ; A course in starvation ; The salt-keeper's son ; Vegetable lambs and barnacle trees ; Several bridegrooms, several brides ; The greater gift of patience ; Now in blame, now in honor ; The seven-headed hydra of Hamburg ; An abridgment of the world entire ; Loathsome harlotry ; The quarrel of the universals -- Part II. This prodigious multitude. Goldfish for the queen ; Covering myself in dust and ashes ; The only prize available ; Durable and even eternal ; Baobab-zu-zu ; So many new and unknown parts ; Governed by laws, governed by whim ; A general prototype ; Breaking the lens ; My cold years ; The price of time -- Part III. God's registrar. Germinal, floreal, thermidor, messidor ; Transformism and castastrophism ; Platypus ; Laughably like mine ; The rhymes of the universe ; Most human of humans ; A large web or rather a network.
Summary: "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"-- Provided by publisher.
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Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Shelving location Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction New 578.012 R645 Checked out 06/14/2024 33111011340862
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

Introduction. Savants -- Prelude. The mask and the veil -- Part I. The great chain of being. Of the Linden tree ; A course in starvation ; The salt-keeper's son ; Vegetable lambs and barnacle trees ; Several bridegrooms, several brides ; The greater gift of patience ; Now in blame, now in honor ; The seven-headed hydra of Hamburg ; An abridgment of the world entire ; Loathsome harlotry ; The quarrel of the universals -- Part II. This prodigious multitude. Goldfish for the queen ; Covering myself in dust and ashes ; The only prize available ; Durable and even eternal ; Baobab-zu-zu ; So many new and unknown parts ; Governed by laws, governed by whim ; A general prototype ; Breaking the lens ; My cold years ; The price of time -- Part III. God's registrar. Germinal, floreal, thermidor, messidor ; Transformism and castastrophism ; Platypus ; Laughably like mine ; The rhymes of the universe ; Most human of humans ; A large web or rather a network.

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