Charismatic and controversial, Louis Agassiz is our least known revolutionary?some fifty years after American independence, he became a founding father of American science.

One hundred and seventy-five years ago, a Swiss immigrant took America by storm, launching American science as we know it. The irrepressible Louis Agassiz, legendary at a young age for his work on mountain glaciers, focused his prodigious energies on the fauna of the New World. Invited to deliver a series of lectures in Boston, he never left, becoming the most famous scientist of his time. A pioneer in field research and an obsessive collector, Agassiz enlisted the American public in a vast campaign to send him natural specimens, dead or alive, for his ingeniously conceived museum of comparative zoology. As an educator of enduring impact, he trained a generation of American scientists and science teachers, men and women alike. Irmscher sheds new light on Agassiz's fascinating partnership with his brilliant wife, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, a science writer in her own right who would go on to become the first president of Radcliffe College.

But there's a dark side to the story. Irmscher adds unflinching evidence of Agassiz's racist impulses and shows how avidly Americans looked to men of science to mediate race policy. The book's potent, original scenes include the pitched battle between Agassiz and his student Henry James Clark as well as the merciless, often amusing exchanges between Darwin and Harvard botanist Asa Gray over Agassiz's stubborn resistance to evolution.

A fascinating life story, both inspiring and cautionary, for anyone interested in the history of American ideas.

Christoph Irmscher, professor of English at Indiana University, is editor of the Library of America's John James Audubon: Writings and Drawings and the author of Longfellow Redux, called "one of the most important books on Longfellow ever written" (Matthew Pearl, author of The Dante Club and editor of Inferno: The Longfellow Translation).

"This book is not just about a man of science but also about a scientific culture in the making-warts and all." -The New York Times Book Review

Charismatic and controversial Swiss immigrant Louis Agassiz took America by storm in the early nineteenth century, becoming a defining force in American science. Yet today, many don't know the complex story behind this revolutionary figure.

At a young age, Agassiz-zoologist, glaciologist, and paleontologist-was invited to deliver a series of lectures in Boston, and he never left. An obsessive pioneer in field research, Agassiz enlisted the American public in a vast campaign to send him natural specimens, dead or alive, for his ingeniously conceived museum of comparative zoology. As an educator of enduring impact, he trained a generation of American scientists and science teachers, men and women alike-and entered into collaboration with his brilliant wife, Elizabeth, a science writer in her own right and first president of Radcliffe College. But there was a dark side to his reputation as well.

Biographer Christoph Irmscher reveals unflinching evidence of Agassiz's racist impulses and shows how avidly Americans at the time looked to men of science to mediate race policy. He also explores Agassiz's stubborn resistance to evolution, his battles with a student-renowned naturalist Henry James Clark-and how he became a source of endless bemusement for Charles Darwin and esteemed botanist Asa Gray. "A wonderful . . . biography," both inspiring and cautionary, it is for anyone interested in the history of American ideas (The Christian Science Monitor).

"A model of what a talented and erudite literary scholar can do with a scientific subject." -Los Angeles Review of Books