Louis Agassiz Creator of American Science

“In this evocative new biography . . . Irmscher is a richly descriptive writer with an eye for detail, the complexities and contradictions of character, and the workings of institutional and familial power structures. . . . This is a book 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
 
“Compelling biography . . . A masterful portrait illuminating the tangled human dynamics of science.” —Booklist, starred review
 
“In Irmscher’s hands, Agassiz’s life and passions are embedded in the major intellectual ideas of his time. . . . The relationship between Agassiz and his second wife, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, the first president of Radcliffe College, is also fascinating.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“Christoph Irmscher’s elegant, beautifully written account does the essential task of setting the mysterious Agassiz in his full social and historical context, where we can both appreciate his gifts and see his flaws clearly. His portrayal of Elizabeth Agassiz and her contributions is brilliant, and his exploration of Agassiz’s stagnation, as the world turned without him, is both rigorous and poignant. Through the prism of Agassiz’s life, much of nineteenth-century culture gleams freshly.” —Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever and The Voyage of the Narwhal
 
“A biography as exuberant as its brilliant but wrong-headed subject, the unforgettable forgotten celebrity scientist Louis Agassiz. Christoph Irmscher is in his element detailing the exploits of this larger-than-life antihero of the Age of Darwin, whose feats of discovery took him from the Swiss Alps to the Amazon jungle and made him Harvard’s reigning eminence for decades.” —Megan Marshall, author of The Peabody Sisters and Margaret Fuller
 
“Christoph Irmscher has brought to life an essential figure in the history of American science and culture. Irmscher’s expertise and talent for vivid prose open a fascinating window onto the origins of American science as we know it.” —Matthew Pearl, author of The Dante Club
 
“A thoroughly satisfying biography . . . Irmscher makes a convincing case that this egotistical, often wrongheaded figure deserves his reputation as a founder and first great popularizer of American science.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“Reading this book is a pleasure—the writing is engaging and witty, while always intellectually rewarding. . . . Irmscher’s account of Agassiz’s life reminds us always to examine our own preconceptions concerning the nature of reality and man’s place in the universe.” —Thomas Cronin, professor of biology, University of Maryland