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

Rating:
Summary: Pauly gives biologists too much credit.
Review: 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.)

Rating:
Summary: Pauly gives biologists too much credit.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: An overambitious yet impressive accomplishment ...
Review: 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.