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Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose - Natural History in Early America (Paperback)
Loot Price: R619
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Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose - Natural History in Early America (Paperback)
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In the years after the Revolutionary War, the fledgling republic of
America was viewed by many Europeans as a degenerate backwater,
populated by subspecies weak and feeble. Chief among these
naysayers was the French Count and world-renowned naturalist
Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, who wrote that the flora and fauna
of America (humans included) were inferior to European specimens.
Thomas Jefferson--author of the Declaration of Independence, U.S.
president, and ardent naturalist--spent years countering the French
conception of American degeneracy. His Notes on Virginia
systematically and scientifically dismantled Buffon's case through
a series of tables and equally compelling writing on the nature of
his home state. But the book did little to counter the arrogance of
the French and hardly satisfied Jefferson's quest to demonstrate
that his young nation was every bit the equal of a well-established
Europe. Enter the giant moose. The American moose, which Jefferson
claimed was so enormous a European reindeer could walk under it,
became the cornerstone of his defense. Convinced that the sight of
such a magnificent beast would cause Buffon to revise his claims,
Jefferson had the remains of a seven-foot ungulate shipped first
class from New Hampshire to Paris. Unfortunately, Buffon died
before he could make any revisions to his Histoire Naturelle, but
the legend of the moose makes for a fascinating tale about
Jefferson's passion to prove that American nature deserved
prestige. In Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose, Lee Alan Dugatkin
vividly recreates the origin and evolution of the debates about
natural history in America and, in so doing, returns the prize
moose to its rightful place in American history.
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