Every Living Thing

Every Living Thing (2024) explores the bitter rivalry between Carl Linnaeus and Georges-Louis de Buffon to catalog every living thing, a competition that gave birth to modern biological science while also planting the seeds of scientific racism. It reveals how historical accidents and political forces ensured that the wrong man’s ideas triumphed, leaving us with Linnaeus’s rigid classification system even though Buffon was right about evolution, extinction, and the interconnected nature of life.

• Science fans who enjoy discovering how scientific knowledge developed through human rivalry and error
• History buffs who appreciate colorful characters and surprising connections to modern issues
• Anyone curious about how political forces shape the scientific ideas that survive

Jason Roberts won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Biography for Every Living Thing. His first book, A Sense of the World, chronicling the blind adventurer James Holman, became a national bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Based in Northern California, he regularly writes for publications like McSweeney’s and The Believer.