The Species Seekers Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth

by Conniff, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780393341324
• ISBN10: 0393341321
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-07
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

From the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth, a colorful band of amateur naturalists explored the most perilous corners of the planet to discover new life-forms. Amid globe-spanning tales of adventure, Richard Conniff recounts a dramatic historical shift, as humans finally discovered the pantheon of life on Earth-and our place within it.

Author Biography

Richard Conniff is an award-winning magazine writer, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a frequent contributor to NPR and the New York Times. The author of Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time, he lives in Connecticut.

Table of Contents

Introduction Strange Things, Strange Lands	p. 1
That Great Beast of a Town	p. 15
Finding the Thread	p. 33
Collecting and Conquest	p. 53
Mad about Shells	p. 71
Extinct	p. 85
The Rising	p. 97
The River Rolling Westward	p. 111
"If They Lost Their Skalps"	p. 129
The Burden of Specimens	p. 143
Arsenic and Immortality	p. 153
"Am I Not a Man and a Brother?"	p. 167
Craniological Longings	p. 179
"A Fool to Nature"	p. 193
The World Turned Upside Down	p. 209
A Primate Named Savage	p. 227
"Species Men"	p. 241
"Labourer in the Field"	p. 253
The Slow Power of Natural Forces	p. 265
The Gorilla War	p. 285
Big Noses and Short Tea-Drinkers	p. 305
Industrial-Scale Natural History	p. 321
"The Blessing of a Good Skirt"	p. 337
The Beast in the Mosquito	p. 347
"Why Not Try the Experiment?"	p. 355
Epilogue The New Age of Discovery	p. 373
Necrology	p. 379
Acknowledgments	p. 385
Notes	p. 387
Bibliography	p. 419
Illustration Credits	p. 435
Index	p. 437
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