Episode 100! I'm thrilled to welcome historian of science Dr. Jessica Riskin.
Jessica is the Frances and Charles Field Professor of History at Stanford University. She's the author of three books and has edited two additional collections. She has also written extensively for academic journals and has published some highly entertaining book reviews and essays for the New York Review of Books and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Her newest book, and her first with a trade press, is The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. It's a biography of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, whose early theories of evolution have been discredited and ignored. But in this book, Jessica traces his life, restores his thinking, and shows not only that we have Lamarck all wrong, but also what we lose when we turn away from his expansive approach to science. It's an interesting subject, but in Jessica's hands it transforms into a deeply engaging, witty, surprising, and fascinating read. I loved learning more about how her love of novels helps her bring the past to life, how transformative it has been to work with great editors, and how she manages to write a book that is both a delightful read and a persuasive argument.
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