WINNER OF THE 2025 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY An Economist book of the year 2024. 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 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. 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 tracing an arc of
insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.
