Pauly tries to assign an historical importance to American biologists that simply doesn't exists. He claims that they have significantly influenced American culture, but his examples are narrow in scope and unconvincing. Pauly is a champion of biologists, as you would expect from a historian of biology, but he goes too far. Biologists have largely been a tool in shaping American culture, rather than a motive force as Pauly claims.

This book, with its great scope and complicated objectives, could not help but fall short in some aspects. Some of his historical analogies (the Grey/Agassiz conflict and the civil war) are a bit of a stretch, and the information on nearly all the scientists leaves the reader wanting. Nonetheless, this book covers an extremely broad range of topics, people...the type above the title says it all--"From Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey". This is obviously not going to be extremely in depth on many subjects. The chapter on biology's integration into the high schools is by far the best section of the book. A book that fulfills a specific niche admirably if not terribly enthrallingly.

For those of us living along the Lewis and Clark trail in Montana and using this book with school children who study Lewis and Clark, we found an obvious error of historical fact. Lewis and Clark never traveled into the Flathead Valley as Kroll states on page 23. Instead, the explorers crossed over Lost Trail Pass into our lovely Bitterroot Valley and traveled north to make camp at Traveler's Rest, on the edge of present day Lolo, MT. The old Lolo trail (now US highway 12) leaves the Bitterroot Valley crossing the Bitterroot Mountains to the west. Could it be Kroll became confused because the Native Americans Lewis and Clark met in the Bitterroot were the Salish Flathead tribe?

The first item a person must relize is that this book is a Historical Novel. In other words, it is based on facts but the author takes liberty by creating a story line. This book deals with the death of the great explorer Meriwether Lewis. However, the only fact the author uses is that Mr Lewis died at Grinder Stand in Tennessee, it seems he decided to just take this sole fact and just make up the rest. The plot is simple enough. Two old friends of Meriwether Lewis decide they have nothing better to do than to become detectives and attempt to find the killer (or killers) of Mr. Lewis. Even though this might seem a simple plot, the author is determined to make it even more complicated by throwing numerous names at the reader until finally at one point this reviewer actually had to stop and reread almost half the book. Even though any level of historian will discover the numerous historical errors he or she will still be shocked at the final statement the author makes. That is "the Majority of historians, today, agree Lewis was killed". This statement is completely unfounded and actually makes this reviewer question the ability of the author to look past his own humerous fiction! Even though there will always be a need for accurate historical research on the death of Meriwether Lewis, this book does not fill the void. The author seems to forget that Meriwether Lewis was placed under arrest while in Memphis because of his numerous suicide attempts while on the Mississippi. It is a shame the author wasted this grand opportunity to create a sloppy work of fiction.