Every Living Thing
Every Living Thing
The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
About This Book
Every Living Thing (2024) chronicles the fierce competition between Carl Linnaeus and Georges-Louis de Buffon as they raced to document all species on Earth—a contest that laid the foundation for modern biology while simultaneously introducing scientific racism into academic thought. The book demonstrates how chance events and political circumstances led to the widespread adoption of Linnaeus's inflexible categorization approach, despite Buffon's accurate predictions about evolution, species extinction, and ecological interdependence.
Who Should Read This?
- Readers fascinated by the intersection of personal ambition and scientific progress
- Those interested in how European colonialism shaped intellectual thought
- People seeking to understand the historical roots of modern biological science
- Individuals curious about how scientific authority can validate social hierarchies
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