Ebook665 pages21 hours
Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
“This book is not just about a man of science but also about a scientific culture in the making—warts and all.” —The New York Times Book Review
Charismatic and controversial Swiss immigrant Louis Agassiz took America by storm in the early nineteenth century, becoming a defining force in American science. Yet today, many don’t know the complex story behind this revolutionary figure.
At a young age, Agassiz—zoologist, glaciologist, and paleontologist—was invited to deliver a series of lectures in Boston, and he never left. An obsessive pioneer in field research, 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—and entered into collaboration with his brilliant wife, Elizabeth, a science writer in her own right and first president of Radcliffe College. But there was a dark side to his reputation as well.
Biographer Christoph Irmscher reveals unflinching evidence of Agassiz’s racist impulses and shows how avidly Americans at the time looked to men of science to mediate race policy. He also explores Agassiz’s stubborn resistance to evolution, his battles with a student—renowned naturalist Henry James Clark—and how he became a source of endless bemusement for Charles Darwin and esteemed botanist Asa Gray. “A wonderful . . . biography,” both inspiring and cautionary, it is for anyone interested in the history of American ideas (The Christian Science Monitor).
“A model of what a talented and erudite literary scholar can do with a scientific subject.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
Charismatic and controversial Swiss immigrant Louis Agassiz took America by storm in the early nineteenth century, becoming a defining force in American science. Yet today, many don’t know the complex story behind this revolutionary figure.
At a young age, Agassiz—zoologist, glaciologist, and paleontologist—was invited to deliver a series of lectures in Boston, and he never left. An obsessive pioneer in field research, 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—and entered into collaboration with his brilliant wife, Elizabeth, a science writer in her own right and first president of Radcliffe College. But there was a dark side to his reputation as well.
Biographer Christoph Irmscher reveals unflinching evidence of Agassiz’s racist impulses and shows how avidly Americans at the time looked to men of science to mediate race policy. He also explores Agassiz’s stubborn resistance to evolution, his battles with a student—renowned naturalist Henry James Clark—and how he became a source of endless bemusement for Charles Darwin and esteemed botanist Asa Gray. “A wonderful . . . biography,” both inspiring and cautionary, it is for anyone interested in the history of American ideas (The Christian Science Monitor).
“A model of what a talented and erudite literary scholar can do with a scientific subject.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
Related to Louis Agassiz
Related ebooks
Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Industrial Arts in Spain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA History Of Australia (Volumes 3 & 4): From 1824 to 1888 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Gay Illusion Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2. From 1620-1816 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Jennings Bryan: A Concise But Complete Story of His Life and Services Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnvisioning an English Empire: Jamestown and the Making of the North Atlantic World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orthodoxy in Massachusetts 1630-1950 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrancis Drake and the California Indians, 1579 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Journals of Lewis and Clark Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On the Origin of Species Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book Of Fables Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Existential drinker Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Cover the Waterfront: Stories from the San Diego Shore Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Fullness of Time: Temporalities of the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Word for Nature: Four Pioneering Environmental Advocates, 1845-1913 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWoman in the Nineteenth Century and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition and Duties, of Woman. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPride and Produce: The Origin, Evolution, and Survival of the Drowned Lands, the Hudson Valley Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jewish West Virginia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shipwreck of the Whaleship Essex: The True Narrative that Inspired Herman Melville's Moby-Dick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Collected Poems: Volume One Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Granite, Fire, and Fog: The Natural and Cultural History of Acadia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReporting Live: Articles and Letters from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Volunteer Poilu [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of Manhattan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Buccaneers of America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
United States History For You
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twelve Years a Slave (Illustrated) (Two Pence books) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Album: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Louis Agassiz
Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
2 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Louis Agassiz - Christoph Irmscher
^e book_preview_excerpt.html ͽMGr%W{!
E|h]| %f߅r\_{}BS/V!/CW
~~/ac^WM]
śqUWj]{\o+8苷2ݢ _ŭ7oYI|p8,wck'>?ūjչX2
[YAv(|YZ,C]C()bZ4Wa8:GźnՕ75֮-u[YǏج/UnG/u=^ֺUw@U-e'K~'_?xx{wܸ7ƿZƱ.
}Qzx~_o=| k{G_eG{Yr9ҡU+Po7x
,;,Aw/_n}<습oj}zq˻n>\\N퓿)_{?]?=-&
3V.\'Gi[JUXϒLh}۲mUuîtK~W_p~I?Ȼ%_(9=|d#|w雳ϟ?vxwAG~a
ŝv}_~;uWk9J], {]3*cS\su6x>g}G}pXd#*{)m>.( t3+R2??4l/
70syYF|]WT8+]v~!:jeDYz|M/
/DotxXit#uf}m}uk={x6bD>}Y;Qh;_/ḊW^⋱5fQ6 b*XJ=bA{=ȻP7nSzxtJ/|b!Xwq
9hj3ge[Vu"rx:y|*kC'q]`_CdkzԧYuU7.o[Ylل%EQ=OQa/C'dŵg`76PCu}oW\\ᇢ{}Nz"ϫjʽ`_(E^1Z2͍}DWr:PbW[pG