I Have Landed Splashes and Reflections in Natural History

About this book

Gould's final essay collection is based on his remarkable series for Natural History magazine – exactly 300 consecutive essays, with never a month missed, published from 1974 to 2001. Both an intellectually thrilling journey into the nature of scientific discovery and the most personal book he ever published.

Contents

Preface
I. Pausing in Continuity
    1. I Have Landed
II. Disciplinary Connections: Scientific Slouching Across a Misconceived Divide
    2. No Science Without Fancy, No Art Without Facts: The Lepidoptery of Vladimir Nabokov
    3. Jim Bowie’s Letter and Bill Buckner’s Legs
    4. The True Embodiment of Everything That’s Excellent
    5. Art Meets Science in The Heart of the Andes: Church Paints, Humboldt Dies, Darwin Writes, and Nature Blinks in the Fateful Year of 1859
III. Darwinian Prequels and Fallout
    6. The Darwinian Gentleman at Marx’s Funeral: Resolving Evolution’s Oddest Coupling
    7. The Pre-Adamite in a Nutshell
    8. Freud’s Evolutionary Fantasy
IV. Essays in the Paleontology of Ideas
    9. The Jew and the Jewstone
    10. When Fossils Were Young
    11. Syphilis and the Shepherd of Atlantis
V. Casting the Die: Six Evolutionary Epitomes
    Defending Evolution
        12. Darwin and the Munchkins of Kansas
        13. Darwin’s More Stately Mansion
        14. A Darwin for All Reasons
    Evolution and Human Nature
        15. When Less Is Truly More
        16. Darwin’s Cultural Degree
        17. The Without and Within of Smart Mice
VI. The Meaning and Drawing of Evolution
    Defining and Beginning
        18. What Does the Dreaded “E” Word Mean Anyway?
        19. The First Day of the Rest of Our Life
        20. The Narthex of San Marco and the Pangenetic Paradigm
    Parsing and Proceeding
        21. Linnaeus’s Luck?
        22. Abscheulich! (Atrocious)
        23. Tales of a Feathered Tail
VII. Natural Worth
    24. An Evolutionary Perspective on the Concept of Native Plants
    25. Age-Old Fallacies of Thinking and Stinking
    26. The Geometer of Race
    27. The Great Physiologist of Heidelberg
VIII. Triumph and Tragedy on the Exact Centennial of I Have Landed, September 11, 2001
    Introductory Statement
    28. The Good People of Halifax
    29. Apple Brown Betty
    30. The Woolworth Building
    31. September 11, ’01
Illustration Credits
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Stephen Jay Gould was Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Geology at Harvard University. His books include Ever Since Darwin, Wonderful Life, Questioning the Millennium, Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms, The Lying Stones of Marrakech and, most recently, Rocks of Ages.