The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth"The Species Seekers takes us back in time--before the words "scientist" or "biologist" even existed--to an era when a popular fever for the natural world swept through humanity. Discovering new species wasn't a rarefied pastime; it was a pandemic, a social disease that struck every corner of society, claiming such notables as Thomas Jefferson, who laid out mastodon bones on the floor of the White House, and Mark Twain, who wanted to explore the Amazon but went bust in New Orleans and had to make do with the river at hand. Amid its tales of adventure and intrigue, The Species Seekers offers unmatched insight into one of the great revolutions in the history of human thought. At the start, God was in heaven, man was the center of the universe, and everyone accepted that the Earth had been born yesterday for our benefit. But we weren't sure where vegetable ended and animal began. We didn't know what species were, or that they could be joined by common origin. We had no method of identifying the causes of the pestilential diseases that made death a constant companion. All that suddenly changed as the species seekers introduced us to the pantheon of life on Earth--and our place within it."--Dust Jacket. |
Contents
Introduction Strange Things Strange Lands | 1 |
Chapter One That Great Beast of a Town | 15 |
Chapter Two Finding the Thread | 33 |
Chapter Three Collecting and Conquest | 53 |
Chapter Seven The River Rolling Westward | 111 |
Chapter Eight If They Lost Their Skalps | 129 |
Chapter Nine The Burden of Specimens | 143 |
Chapter Eleven Am I Not a Man and a Brother? | 167 |
Chapter Fourteen The World Turned Upside Down | 209 |
Chapter Seventeen Labourer in the Field | 253 |
Chapter TwentyOne IndustrialScale Natural History | 321 |
Chapter TwentyTwo The Blessing of a Good Skirt | 337 |
Chapter TwentyThree The Beast in the Mosquito | 347 |
Necrology | 379 |
Acknowledgments | 385 |
| 419 | |
Chapter Twelve Craniological Longings | 179 |
Chapter Thirteen A Fool to Nature | 193 |
Illustration Credits | 435 |
Other editions - View all
The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth Richard Conniff Limited preview - 2010 |
The Species Seekers: Heroes Fools And The Mad Pursuit Of Life On Earth Richard Conniff No preview available - 2011 |
The Species Seekers: Heroes Fools And The Mad Pursuit Of Life On Earth Richard Conniff No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
Africa age of discovery Alfred Russel Wallace American Philosophical Society animals Audubon Bates became beetles birds bones botanist British Museum Buffon butterflies century Chaillu Charles Charles Darwin Collection of Richard collectors creatures Cuvier Darwin Correspondence Project David described Desmond and Moore discovered discovery disease Earth expedition explorer extinct fossil French Gabon genus Georges Cuvier gorilla Gosse Henry Walter Bates Hooker human Hunter idea incognitum Indian insects instance Jefferson John John James Audubon Journal Kingsley later Letter Linnaeus Linnean Society living London Lyell malaria Malay Archipelago Manson monkey mosquito natural history natural world naturalists Negro ornithologist Paul Du Chaillu Peale Philadelphia races Rafinesque Richard Conniff Richard Owen River Ross Rothschild 1983 Rumphius Savage scientific scientists seemed shells ship skin skulls soon species seekers specimens Stedman taxidermy theory Thomas Say travels University Vestiges Wallace's Waterton Wellcome Library Wilson wrote Wyman York zoology