Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Description
Description
The tumultuous life and radical science of a revolutionary thinker, and the history of an idea that changed the world In the early nineteenth century, the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed the first evolutionary theory of life and, with it, a new science: biology. Yet for centuries, evolutionary theorists have endeavored to discredit Lamarck and his theory of self-transforming organisms, rejecting the idea that animals play an active role in shaping their own evolution. In his lifetime, he was mocked by his adversaries and personally insulted by Napoleon. In this virtuosic melding of biography, history, politics, and science, Jessica Riskin sets out to correct the record. Riskin tells the story of Lamarck's life and work as an intense struggle between rival forces to answer questions that remain foundational to our modern worldview: What is a living being, and what is science? New findings suggest Lamarck's basic claim was, in many ways, right, and a reconsideration of his life and work is long overdue. Denying the agency of living beings has informed two centuries of eugenic policies and environmental destruction, allowing people to regard the living world as so much raw material to shape and exploit for economic, industrial, and imperial gain. Deeply researched, strikingly original, and beautifully written, The Power of Life shines a much-needed light on an underappreciated biologist whose radical ideas offered a more inclusive, collaborative, and enlightened approach to science.
About the Author
About the Author
Jessica Riskin is the Frances and Charles Field Professor of History at Stanford University, where she teaches modern European history and the history of science. She is the author of The Restless Clock and Science in the Age of Sensibility and is a regular contributor to a number of publications, including Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the New York Review of Books. She lives in Berkeley, California.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
"A truly remarkable achievement, at once a delightfully wry and wildly entertaining biography of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and a riveting intellectual history of the tumultuous emergence of "biology" (a word Lamarck coined). The long-underrated and much-maligned professor of insects and worms is vindicated as the founder of a set of revolutionary ideas whose time, nearly two centuries after his death, has come at last."
--Jill Lepore, professor of American history, Harvard University; author of These Truths and We the People "The Power of Life is packed with admirable scholarship; the author is an excellent stylist and accomplished historian. . . . She shines as a cultural historian, with enthralling tales of botanic gardens and early zoos, along with such notables as Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Georges Cuvier and of course Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck." --Wall Street Journal "How thrilling to learn that Lamarck was right all along about the role of creativity and life experience in guiding evolutionary change. A gorgeous story of human nature and animal behavior--and of the way science itself evolves."
--Dava Sobel, author of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter "An intriguing look at the life of a scientist who changed the way we look at life." --Kirkus Reviews "Jessica Riskin writes with the verve and vision of the very best literary novelists. A brilliant reclamation of a more expansive and poetic mode of science that still reads today as subversive--and is perhaps more timely and urgent than ever."
--Meghan O'Gieblyn, author of God, Human, Animal, Machine "[T]his fresh reconsideration. . . reevaluates the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, the 18th-century French naturalist who was castigated for his claim that organisms' acquired characteristics can be passed down to their offspring. . . .Historians and scientists will find much to savor." --Publishers Weekly
"Transportive and engaging. . . . Richly detailed yet accessible, this work recenters a vital voice in the history of evolutionary thought." --Library Journal "Jessica Riskin has given us that rarity, a work of pathbreaking intellectual history that is also marvelously entertaining. Every chapter sparkles with insight, wit, and keenly drawn portraits."
--David A. Bell, professor of history, Princeton University, and author of Napoleon: A Concise Biography "The Power of Life is nothing less than an anatomy of Lamarck's dangerous idea: living organisms are not passive mechanisms but agents that shape their worlds and the narrative of their species across time. With her storytelling gifts and finely tuned humor, Riskin takes her reader on a great adventure as she traces the history of a radical thinker whose time, it seems, has finally arrived."
--Siri Hustvedt, author of What I Loved and The Blazing World
--Jill Lepore, professor of American history, Harvard University; author of These Truths and We the People "The Power of Life is packed with admirable scholarship; the author is an excellent stylist and accomplished historian. . . . She shines as a cultural historian, with enthralling tales of botanic gardens and early zoos, along with such notables as Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Georges Cuvier and of course Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck." --Wall Street Journal "How thrilling to learn that Lamarck was right all along about the role of creativity and life experience in guiding evolutionary change. A gorgeous story of human nature and animal behavior--and of the way science itself evolves."
--Dava Sobel, author of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter "An intriguing look at the life of a scientist who changed the way we look at life." --Kirkus Reviews "Jessica Riskin writes with the verve and vision of the very best literary novelists. A brilliant reclamation of a more expansive and poetic mode of science that still reads today as subversive--and is perhaps more timely and urgent than ever."
--Meghan O'Gieblyn, author of God, Human, Animal, Machine "[T]his fresh reconsideration. . . reevaluates the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, the 18th-century French naturalist who was castigated for his claim that organisms' acquired characteristics can be passed down to their offspring. . . .Historians and scientists will find much to savor." --Publishers Weekly
"Transportive and engaging. . . . Richly detailed yet accessible, this work recenters a vital voice in the history of evolutionary thought." --Library Journal "Jessica Riskin has given us that rarity, a work of pathbreaking intellectual history that is also marvelously entertaining. Every chapter sparkles with insight, wit, and keenly drawn portraits."
--David A. Bell, professor of history, Princeton University, and author of Napoleon: A Concise Biography "The Power of Life is nothing less than an anatomy of Lamarck's dangerous idea: living organisms are not passive mechanisms but agents that shape their worlds and the narrative of their species across time. With her storytelling gifts and finely tuned humor, Riskin takes her reader on a great adventure as she traces the history of a radical thinker whose time, it seems, has finally arrived."
--Siri Hustvedt, author of What I Loved and The Blazing World
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
Publisher:
Riverhead Books
Pub date:
2026-03-24
Length:
496 pages
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