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A review by stephen_baird
How Zoologists Organize Things: The Art of Classification by David Bainbridge
4.0
I’m a sucker for a beautiful cover, and I just fell in love with this one as soon as I saw it.
When it arrived I just dove in and was fascinated by all the charts and illustrations, it was jam-packed. Ranging from very early theories of classification based on religious placement of humans and animals all the way to the most recent diagrams that show a frozen moment in time of ever developing classification systems that are both complicated and beautiful.
Each chapter is based on a specific theoretical outlook to classification and talks about that classification and the people who are thought of as the main proponents of those theories.
Due to space constraints due to the dazzling amount of illustrations this can sometimes feel a bit thin, though the theories are described well enough to give a brief idea and the chapter signposts ways of finding out more, especially the mini biographies.
Overall a really pleasing visual feast and a book I’ll keep going back to for the illustrations.
When it arrived I just dove in and was fascinated by all the charts and illustrations, it was jam-packed. Ranging from very early theories of classification based on religious placement of humans and animals all the way to the most recent diagrams that show a frozen moment in time of ever developing classification systems that are both complicated and beautiful.
Each chapter is based on a specific theoretical outlook to classification and talks about that classification and the people who are thought of as the main proponents of those theories.
Due to space constraints due to the dazzling amount of illustrations this can sometimes feel a bit thin, though the theories are described well enough to give a brief idea and the chapter signposts ways of finding out more, especially the mini biographies.
Overall a really pleasing visual feast and a book I’ll keep going back to for the illustrations.