PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • An epic extraordinary account of scientific rivalry and obsession in
the quest to survey all of life on Earth “[An] engaging and thought-provoking book one
focused on the theatrical politics and often deeply troubling science that shape our
definitions of life on Earth.”— The New York Times “A fluent and engaging account of the
eighteenth-century origins of Darwinism before Darwin.”— The Wall Street Journal WINNER OF
THE PEN E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
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.
