The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
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.
