Elizabeth Kolbert: Reëxamining a naturalist’s theories of mass extinction. On April 4, 1796—or, according to the French Revolutionary calendar in use at the time, 15 Germinal, Year IV—Jean-Léopold-Nicholas-Frédéric Cuvier, known, after a brother who had died, simply as Georges, delivered his first public lecture at the . . . (Subscription required.)
Dec. 9, 2013 - The New Yorker