Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science
Language: English
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: Bay State Book Company, North Smithfield, RI, U.S.A.Bay State Book Company
AbeBooks seller since January 23, 2023
Condition: Used - Good
£ 4.28
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Add to basketItem description from seller
The book is in good condition with all pages and cover intact, including the dust jacket if originally issued. The spine may show light wear. Pages may contain some notes or highlighting, and there might be a "From the library of" label. Boxed set packaging, shrink wrap, or included media like CDs may be missing.
Seller Inventory # BSM.1C7ZO
- Title
- Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science
- Author
- Irmscher, Christoph
- Publisher
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Publication year
- 2013
- Condition
- good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0547577672
- ISBN 13
- 9780547577678
Charismatic and controversial, Louis Agassiz is our least known revolutionary—some fifty years after American independence, he became a founding father of American science.
One hundred and seventy-five years ago, a Swiss immigrant took America by storm, launching American science as we know it. The irrepressible Louis Agassiz, legendary at a young age for his work on mountain glaciers, focused his prodigious energies on the fauna of the New World. Invited to deliver a series of lectures in Boston, he never left, becoming the most famous scientist of his time. A pioneer in field research and an obsessive collector, Agassiz enlisted the American public in a vast campaign to send him natural specimens, dead or alive, for his ingeniously conceived museum of comparative zoology. As an educator of enduring impact, he trained a generation of American scientists and science teachers, men and women alike. Irmscher sheds new light on Agassiz’s fascinating partnership with his brilliant wife, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, a science writer in her own right who would go on to become the first president of Radcliffe College.
But there’s a dark side to the story. Irmscher adds unflinching evidence of Agassiz’s racist impulses and shows how avidly Americans looked to men of science to mediate race policy. The book’s potent, original scenes include the pitched battle between Agassiz and his student Henry James Clark as well as the merciless, often amusing exchanges between Darwin and Harvard botanist Asa Gray over Agassiz’s stubborn resistance to evolution.
A fascinating life story, both inspiring and cautionary, for anyone interested in the history of American ideas.
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From the Back Cover
Christoph Irmscher has brought to life an essential figure in the history of American science and culture. Irmscher s expertise and talent for vivid prose opens a fascinating window onto the origins of American science as we know it. Matthew Pearl, author of The Dante Club
A thoroughly satisfying biography . . . Irmscher makes a convincing case that this egotistical, often wrong-headed figure deserves his reputation as a founder and first great popularizer of American science. Kirkus Reviews
Reading this book is a pleasure the writing is engaging and witty, while always intellectually rewarding . . . Irmscher s account of Agassiz s life reminds us always to examine our own preconceptions concerning the nature of reality and man s place in the universe. Tom Cronin, professor of biology, University of Maryland
[ADDITIONAL BLURB TK BY 11/26 FROM ANDREA BARRETT]
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Bay State Book Company
North Smithfield, RI, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since January 23, 2023
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