Every Living Thing by Jason Roberts

This book is best when it sticks to it's opening subject, the way that science changed in the 18th century, before the inevitability of evolution was articulated. It traces the lives and careers of two 18th-century naturalists whose opposing perspectives made them, and their followers, rivals: Carl Linnaeus, a misogynist self-promoter and holder of a low brow medical degree who was a terrible student but an observant botanist. He invented binary nomenclature and a classification system that assigned plants and animals into kingdoms, classes, orders, families, and species. George-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic natural historian in charge of France’s royal gardens, saw the natural world as thrillingly complex, and the two were at odds to get the upper hand. Linnaeus believed that life on Earth was unchanged from the moment of God’s creation. De Buffon, on the other hand, believed all such systematic approaches were reductionist and flawed, and that of Linnaeus, “the least sensible and the most monstrous.” Species, he posited, changed by adapting to their environments. Both men defended their views in widely read tracts: De Buffon’s 35-volume Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particuliere reflected his own minute investigations; Linnaeus, author of continual revisions to his Systema Naturae, sent acolytes to conduct research in the field, where they sometimes perished. Because of his was the more easily grasped classification system, which included racist classifications of humans, Linnaeus prevailed, while de Buffon’s reputation plummeted. Roberts examines the men’s legacies as natural philosophy became science, and science branched into biology, zoology, and genetics. Linnaeus’ systems were complicated by the discovery of microscopic life and blooming biodiversity; towering figures confronted the stark evidence of evolution. This is a fascinating back story to set the stage for Darwin's magnum opus.