In the years after the Revolutionary War, the fledgling republic of
America was viewed by many Europeans as a degenerate backwater,
populated by subspecies weak and feeble. Chief among these naysayers
was the French Count and world-renowned naturalist Georges-Louis
Leclerc de Buffon, who wrote that the flora and fauna of America
(humans included) were inferior to European specimens. Thomas
Jefferson—author of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. president,
and ardent naturalist—spent years countering the French conception
of American degeneracy. His Notes on Virginia systematically and
scientifically dismantled Buffon’s case through a series of tables
and equally compelling writing on the nature of his home state. But
the book did little to counter the arrogance of the French and hardly
satisfied Jefferson’s quest to demonstrate that his young nation was
every bit the equal of a well-established Europe. Enter the giant
moose. The American moose, which Jefferson claimed was so enormous a
European reindeer could walk under it, became the cornerstone of his
defense. Convinced that the sight of such a magnificent beast would
cause Buffon to revise his claims, Jefferson had the remains of a
seven-foot ungulate shipped first class from New Hampshire to Paris.
Unfortunately, Buffon died before he could make any revisions to his
Histoire Naturelle, but the legend of the moose makes for a
fascinating tale about Jefferson’s passion to prove that American
nature deserved prestige. In Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose, Lee
Alan Dugatkin vividly recreates the origin and evolution of the
debates about natural history in America and, in so doing, returns the
prize moose to its rightful place in American history.
Les mer
Natural History in Early America
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780226169194
Publisert
2018
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Chicago Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter