Buffon: A Life in Natural History (Cornell History of Science Series)

Buffon: A Life in Natural History (Cornell History of Science Series) by Roger, Jacques. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780801429187.

The appearance in English of this magisterial biography is a major publishing event. Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1707-1788), was perhaps the most important of Charles Darwins predecessors, Director of the Royal Botanical Garden, and certainly the premier French scientist of the Enlightenment. Buffon conducted a broad range of experiments, from the burning effects of the suns rays, to the tensile strength of timber. His studies of plant life led to his creation of a renowned nursery, his zoological interests to his development of an aviary and menagerie. His massive, thirty-six-volume System of Nature was the most widely collected work of the Enlightenment, reaching more readers than even the classics of Voltaire and Rousseau. After Buffons death, however, his importance as a scientist was denigrated, and little information about him has been available in English. This biography, the life work of Jacques Roger, finally gives Buffon his due. Roger transforms Buffons image from that of a somewhat incoherent courtly naturalist into that of a major philosophical and scientific thinker. Using Buffons enormous literary production as the major source of insight into his and his ages beliefs about the natural world, the book is both a biography and an analytical discussion of Buffons science.Wonderful illustrations of assorted animals, taken from early editions of Buffons Natural History, make this intellectual extravaganza a visual delight as well.