Customer Reviews

Biologists and the Promise of American Life: From Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey

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This book, with its great scope and complicated objectives, could not help but fall short in some aspects. Some of his historical analogies (the Grey/Agassiz conflict and the civil war) are a bit of a stretch, and the information on nearly all the scientists leaves the reader wanting. Nonetheless, this book covers an extremely broad range of topics, people...the type above the title says it all--"From Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey". This is obviously not going to be extremely in depth on many subjects. The chapter on biology's integration into the high schools is by far the best section of the book. A book that fulfills a specific niche admirably if not terribly enthrallingly.

This book is a terrific addition to the history of American modernity. It does assume a solid grasp of the basic narrative of the times, and is therefore suitable for upper-level college classes and graduate students rather than general readers. What is crucial about this book is Pauly's description of how scientists operate on paths that do not always converge with mainstream American life, but who nonetheless have a disproportionate impact of how we see the world. One example of this is Pauly's brilliant observation that all the attention to the Scopes Trial is missing a key point--the "question" of evolution was already decided by those who wrote the science textbooks of the day. Considering how science is being undermined by political forces today, Pauly's book is quite relevant in understanding how science shapes--and is shaped--by society.

Pauly tries to assign an historical importance to American biologists that simply doesn't exists. He claims that they have significantly influenced American culture, but his examples are narrow in scope and unconvincing. Pauly is a champion of biologists, as you would expect from a historian of biology, but he goes too far. Biologists have largely been a tool in shaping American culture, rather than a motive force as Pauly claims.

(The above review was written in 2000. Four years later, I have revised my judgement on Pauly's thesis; biologists have been a force in some significant ways, though perhaps not to the extent Pauly argues. However, this book is too broad to be convincing in its examples, unless the reader already has a moderate grasp of the history of biology in America.)