A fascinating and unique look at Aristotle, his pioneering research into the biological world, and his influence on modern day science
Armand Marie Leroi is Professor of Evolutionary Developmental Biology at Imperial College London. He studied in Halifax, Canada, and Irvine, CA, and did post-doctoral work at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. As well as many technical papers, he is the author of Mutants: On the Form, Variety and Errors of the Human Body (2003), which has been translated into nine languages and won the Guardian First Book Award. He lives in London.
In elegant, stylish and often witty prose, he probes the
near-legendary, almost primeval lagoon which inspired the ancient
Greek’s Historia animalium and animates it anew with his own
incisive observations ... The Lagoon is a heroic, beautiful work in
its own right, an enquiring odyssey into unknown nature, and the
known world which science has created out of it
*Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan or, The Whale and
The Sea Inside*
Leroi clearly adores Greece and he uses his detailed local
knowledge to splendid effect, evocatively re-creating the
experiences of the peripatetic philosopher … Leroi is absolutely
right to say that even those sections of Aristotle’s work we no
longer believe to be correct have affected the knowledge that we
have today
*Literary Review*
In this lush, epic and hugely enjoyable book, biologist Armand
Marie Leroi explores the idea that it was another ancient Greek
giant whose shoulders we may all stand upon … Leroi is a beautiful
writer and it’s been too long, a decade, since his last outstanding
book
*Observer*
Brilliant … Not just a charismatic book, but one that places
Aristotle in a freshly Aegean context … Above all, Leroi shows,
science today trawls through reams of data for patterns and
explanations, in precisely Aristotle’s manner
*Sunday Times*
Leroi takes us through Aristotle’s work, finding hints of modern
thinking everywhere … The Lagoon bubbles with enthusiasm for its
subject, making an absolutely gripping read out of what might have
seemed the most unlikely material
*The Times*
Compelling, sometimes contentious, and always thought-provoking …
It celebrates what is most admirable in the Aristotelian tradition:
its appreciation of what is actually there
*Financial Times*
How Aristotle nearly beat Darwin to a theory of evolution.
Brilliant
*Sunday Times Must Reads*
In the History of Animals “[Aristotle] speaks of the reproduction
of lice, the mating habits of herons, the sexual incontinence of
girls, the stomachs of snails, the sensitivity of starfish, the
dumbness of the deaf, the flatulence of elephants and the structure
of the human heart: his book contains 130,000 words and 9,000
empirical claims”. Leroi’s own uncompromising investigation gives
us a flavour of his subject’s indefatigable explorations … Leroi
does not upstage Aristotle’s descriptions with modern anatomical
illustrations, though his attractively illustrated discussions draw
on much scholarship that has been expended on editing and
interpreting Aristotle’s ideas about nature … Leroi’s scholarship
is impeccable and consistently generous … Only an expert biologist
with broad cultural sympathies and a deep feeling for history could
have created such a compelling reappraisal of Aristotle’s place in
the history of science. What’s in a name, indeed; in marshalling
the facts and ideas that support Aristotle’s scientific credentials
in exuberant detail, Leroi must be accounted the king
*Times Literary Supplement*
Beautifully written
* Irish Daily Mail *
Remarkable
* Mail on Sunday*
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