Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life

✦《萬物生靈》——一場關於分類、演化與人類未來的世紀競逐 ✦

2025普立茲獎得主作品
PEN／E.O. Wilson 科學寫作獎得主
Kirkus 年度選書

「引人入勝又發人深省……聚焦於塑造我們如何定義地球生命的戲劇性政治與令人不安的科學。」——《紐約時報》
「流暢動人，講述達爾文之前的達爾文主義起源。」——《華爾街日報》

十八世紀，兩位同時代卻立場迥異的人，立下幾乎不可能完成的目標：
辨識並描述地球上的所有生命。

一位是虔誠的瑞典醫師 Carl Linnaeus，主張生命應被整齊、靜態地分類；
另一位是法國博學貴族、皇家花園總監 Georges-Louis de Buffon，認為生命是一股流動而複雜的力量。

他們都曾相信：地球上的物種或許不過幾千種——甚至能裝進挪亞方舟。

結果證明遠非如此。

✧ 分類與演化的對決
林奈創造了「哺乳類」「靈長類」「智人」等概念，奠定現代生物分類學基礎，卻否認物種會改變，並推廣帶有種族歧視色彩的偽科學。
布豐則提出早期的演化與遺傳思想雛形，警告全球氣候變遷的可能，並強烈反對偏見。

兩人對自然、人類與地球未來的理解南轅北轍，而這場思想衝突在他們死後仍持續延燒，最終形塑出一門嶄新的學科——生物學。
作者 Jason Roberts 以史詩般筆法交織兩人的生命軌跡，以及追隨者們驚險甚至致命的探索歷程，帶領讀者穿越三個世紀，重新理解我們如何認識「生命」本身。

這不只是科學史，更是一部關於權力、信念與人類如何定義萬物的思想史詩。

當我們試圖為世界命名，也在同時決定我們如何看待彼此。 

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • An epic, extraordinary account of scientific rivalry and obsession in the quest to survey all of life on Earth

“[An] engaging and thought-provoking book, one focused on the theatrical politics and often deeply troubling science that shape our definitions of life on Earth.”—The New York Times

“A fluent and engaging account of the eighteenth-century origins of Darwinism before Darwin.”—The Wall Street Journal

WINNER OF THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

In the eighteenth century, two men—exact contemporaries and polar opposites—dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster’s flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France’s royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities. Each began his task believing it to be difficult but not impossible: How could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species—or as many could fit on Noah’s Ark?

Both fell far short of their goal, but in the process they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, the future of the Earth, and humanity itself. Linnaeus gave the world such concepts as mammal, primate, and Homo sapiens, but he also denied that species change and he promulgated racist pseudoscience. Buffon formulated early prototypes of evolution and genetics, warned of global climate change, and argued passionately against prejudice. The clash of their conflicting worldviews continued well after their deaths, as their successors contended for dominance in the emerging science that came to be called biology.

In Every Living Thing, Jason Roberts weaves a sweeping, unforgettable narrative spell, exploring the intertwined lives and legacies of Linnaeus and Buffon—as well as the groundbreaking, often fatal adventures of their acolytes—to trace an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.