We humans share Earth with 1.4 million known species and millions more species that are still unrecorded. Yet we know surprisingly little about the practical work that produced the vast inventory we have to date of our fellow creatures. How were these multitudinous creatures collected, recorded, and named? When, and by whom?

Here a distinguished historian of science tells the story of the modern discovery of biodiversity. Robert Kohler argues that the work begun by Linnaeus culminated around 1900, when collecting and inventory were organized on a grand scale in natural history...

The everyday practice of historical scholarship is by necessity small-scaled and specialized. This essential volume for historians of science reveals how scholars in their everyday practice can work to maintain a sense of a larger purpose. The contributors were encouraged to expand their intimate experience with particular subjects to create works with a broad appeal to scholars in many disciplines. The essays are meant to be exemplars of a historiographical genre that achieve general interest in ways that are participatory, grass-roots, and non-directive.