Reviews
"A wonderful tale . . . Following the story of natural history, science, philosophy and even religion in America through the enthusiasms and feuds of a few insect collectors." -- The Dallas Morning News "Compelling. . . . A splendid twinning of natural science and America." -- The Economist "Illuminating . . . fascinating. . . . Leach is at his best when he describes moments of butterfly discovery, sharing both the insights Americans discovered over the course of a century and the price they paid for that knowledge." -- The Washington Post "In this sprawling examination, Leach succeeds in weaving his disparate social and historical strands into a thought-provoking tapestry that will appeal to natural history aficionados and students of American culture." -- The Wall Street Journal "A spirited history." -- The New Yorker "This is truly a remarkable piece of work, and I was totally drawn in. Leach has captured a very important aspect of history as I am sure no one else could have. Along the way it reveals the origins of our obsessions and their trajectory. The breadth and depth of this will stay with me a long time, and I hope the book will be read widely." --Bernd Heinrich, author of Winter World "Leach is in pursuit of big ideas about art, science, evolution, collecting, economics, and technology." -- The Boston Globe "[Leach] uses the rapid expansion of American interest in butterflies after the Civil War as a way into man's arduous process of understanding his place in the order of things. . . . Leach describes the science of this period as a 'fascinating mix of scientific confidence and human longing,' and this book treats both aspects with equal care and well-researched precision." -- The Daily Beast "Today's butterfly people will be enthralled. . . . The wonder Leach evokes will captivate all who appreciate the natural world." -- New Scientist "A brilliant work of history." -- Bookforum "Masterful and beguiling. . . . A literary cabinet of wonders packed with scientific discoveries, historic artifacts, and artistic revelations to delight scholarly and casual readers alike. No mere flight of fancy, the book is an original consideration of American science, economics and aesthetics set in a time of profound cultural change." --Washington Independent Review of Books "A mesmerizing and comprehensive history of butterfly collection in America. . . . This is a deep dive into what, at first glance, seems an esoteric subject, but after further perusal reveals itself as an essential component of this nation's intellectual history." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Fascinating. . . . An unusual, pinpointed slice of American life." -- Kirkus Reviews "Astute and exciting. . . . A unique celebration of nineteenth-century American butterfly fanatics. . . . [Leach] delivers new understanding of our past and present."-- Booklist (starred review) "Shimmering . . . Entrancing. . . . Mingles the resurrection of mostly forgotten figures with social, economic, and intellectual history. . . . Rivalries and even bitter animosities emer≥ reputations are flayed, personal feelings pinned. But behind all this is a genuine longing to see, to know, and to understand." -- New Criterion, "A mesmerizing and comprehensive history of butterfly collection in America . . . This is a deep dive into what, at first glance, seems an esoteric subject, but after further perusal reveals itself as an essential component of this nation's intellectual history. Fully informative on all things lepidoptera, this work embodies that 19th-century synthesis of science and art, while staying firmly grounded as a history of its namesake, as the Butterfly People become as rare as their most highly prized specimens." -Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Fascinating . . . This is an unusual, pinpointed slice of American life enlivened with fragments of correspondence and reproductions of plates from classic books of the period." -Kirkus "William Leach shows us that butterflies and the people who loved, studied, and profited from them were at the center of much that was new in American aesthetics, science, and ethics at a time of far-reaching social, cultural, and economic change. Not simply an absorbing history of America's nineteenth-century natural history collectors, Butterfly People is also a moving and enlightening elegy for American nature and for America itself as it crossed the threshold of industrialization." -Hugh Raffles, author of Insectopedia "In this unprecedented account, William Leach shows us how a handful of diligent students of the most beautiful and delicate insects allowed the science of evolution to celebrate beauty, not to explain it away. Butterfly People is a comprehensive and marvelous book, revealing in great detail how naturalists become scientists through their love and experience of the creatures they study." -David Rothenberg, author of Survival of the Beautiful " Who but another butterfly collector would want to read a book about America's pioneer butterfly collectors? Anyone interested in the development of American science in the context of evolving American values and culture. Leach, an eminent historian, presents vivid portraits of these fascinating and complex people, who did so much to advance the emerging Darwinian biology and biogeography of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Along the way, the reader learns a lot of biology painlessly, too.)" -Arthur M. Shapiro, University of California, Davis author of Field Guide to the Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions "If you have loved butterflies, you will love this book. If you haven't yet, you might begin here. Butterfly People is a book about the pursuit of beauty: the story, like the subject, is irresistible." -Robert D. Richardson Jr., author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire
