From the Book - First edition.
pt. 1. Heaven and Earth: Happy thoughts on a sunny day in New York City --
Dousing diminutive Dennis's debate (or DDDD=2000) --
Celestial mechanic and the earthly naturalist --
Late birth of a flat Earth --
pt. 2. Literature and science: Monster's human nature --
Tooth and claw centennial --
pt. 3. Origin, stability, and extinction: [1.] Origin: In the mond of the beholder --
Of tongue worms, velvet worms, and water bears --
[2.] Stability: Cordelia's dilemma --
Lucy on the Earth in stasis --
[3.] Extinction: Dinosaur in a haystack --
pt. 4. Writing about snails: Poe's greatest hit --
Left snails and right minds --
pt. 5. Glory of museums: Dinomania --
Cabinet museums: alive alive, O! --
Four antelopes of the apocalypse --
pt. 6. Disparate faces of eugenics: Does the stoneless plum instruct the thinking reed? --
Smoking gun of eugenics --
Most unkindest cut of all --
pt. 7. Evolutionary theory, evolutionary stories: [1.] Theory: Can we complete Darwin's revolution? --
A humongous fungus among us --
Speaking of snails and scales --
[2.] Stories: Hooking Leviathan by its past --
A special fondness for beetles --
If kings can be hermits, then we are all monkey's uncles --
pt. 8. Linnaeus and Darwin's grandfather: First unmasking of nature --
Ordering nature by budding and full-breasted sexuality --
Four metaphors in three generations.