What Linnaeus Saw

A Scientist's Quest to Name Every Living Thing

By: Karen Magnuson Beil

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

The globetrotting naturalists of the 18th century were the geeks of their day: innovators and explorers who lived at the intersection of science and commerce. Foremost among them was Carl Linnaeus, a radical thinker who revolutionized biology.

In What Linnaeus Saw, Karen Magnuson Beil chronicles Linnaeus's life and career in readable, relatable prose. As a boy, Linnaeus hated school and had little interest in taking up the religious profession his family had chosen. Though he struggled through Latin and theology classes, Linnaeus was an avid student of the natural world and explored the school's gardens and woods, transfixed by the properties of different plants. At 25, on a solo expedition to the Scandinavian Mountains, Linnaeus documented and described dozens of new species. As a medical student in Holland, he moved among leading scientific thinkers and had access to the best collections of plants and animals in Europe. What Linnaeus found was a world with no consistent system for describing and naming living things - a situation he methodically set about changing. The Linnaean system for classifying plants and animals, developed and refined over the course of his life, is the foundation of modern scientific taxonomy, and inspired and guided generations of scientists.

What Linnaeus Saw is rich with biographical anecdotes - from his attempt to identify a mysterious animal given him by the king to successfully growing a rare and exotic banana plant in Amsterdam to debunking stories of dragons and phoenixes. Thoroughly researched, it offers a vivid and insightful glimpse into the life of one of modern science's founding thinkers.

©2019 Karen Magnuson Beil (P)2019 Recorded Books

An excellent biography

I love learning about the sense of humor and personality quirks of people I had known only by their role in history. There were so many difficulties Linneaus faced at the time, both internally and with colleagues, as his discoveries challenged the religious beliefs of his society, and that also gives me more insight into the time. I feel almost as if I had known him personally, and that’s what I think makes a great biography.