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Every Living Thing

The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
By Jason Roberts
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Brief Description
The dramatic, globe-spanning and meticulously-researched story of two scientific rivals and their race to survey all life. 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.... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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A thrilling account of a centuries-old rivalry - an exploration of scientific discovery and its evolution in an ever-changing and displaced world.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The dramatic, globe-spanning and meticulously-researched story of two scientific rivals and their race to survey all life.

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, ever-changing swirl of complexities.

Both began believing their work to be difficult, but not impossibleβ€”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 sapiensβ€”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.

With elegant, propulsive prose grounded in more than a decade of research, bestselling author Jason Roberts tells an unforgettable true-life tale of intertwined lives and enduring legacies in Every Living Thing, tracing an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529400489

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 10 April 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: riverrun

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 34.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 302g

Pages: 432

Collections

Education & Reference Jason Roberts Non-Fiction Science & Nature

About the Author

Jason Roberts is the author of the national bestseller A Sense of the World, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and named a best book of the year by the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews, and School Library Journal. The winner of the Van Zorn Prize for fiction (founded and awarded by Michael Chabon), he is a contributor to McSweeney's, The Believer, The Rumpus, and other publications, as well as editor of the bestselling 642 Things to Write About series. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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