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The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Historian Jessica Riskin restores Jean-Baptiste Lamarck to the story of modern science and uses his career to trace the invention of biology as a distinct study of life. She situates his theories of transformation, adaptation, and living activity within revolutionary France and debates over mechanism, agency, and nature. Rather than reducing Lamarck to a mistaken caricature opposed to Darwin, the book shows how his questions shaped later arguments about evolution and organismal purpose. Riskin's history asks what makes living things active and why science has repeatedly struggled to describe that power.
- Publisher
- Riverhead Books
- Publication date
- 2026-03-24
- Format
- Hardcover
- Pages
- 496
- ISBN
- 9780593852576
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