Historical Portrait of the Progress of Ichthyology - From Its Origin to Our Own Time

A founder of comparative anatomy and giant of nineteenth-century biology, Georges Cuvier began publishing his twenty-two-volume Histoire Naturelle des Poissons in 1828. Cuvier's history became a landmark survey in the science of fishes, delving back before the Greeks to the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians. As an introduction to this monumental work, his first volume traced the development of the study of fishes as he understood it and outlined the criteria for classification that his own work would follow. This critically important essay--arguably the first attempt at comprehensive marine biology--now appears in a bilingual version (English/French), accompanied by rich annotations and a significant number of historical illustrations.

Theodore W. Pietsch is professor emeritus in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, as well as curator Emeritus of Fishes at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, at the University of Washington. He is the author of more than twenty books, including The Curious Death of Peter Artedi: A Mystery in the History of Science, Tropical Fishes of the East Indies, Oceanic Anglerfishes: Extraordinary Diversity in the Deep-Sea, and Charles Plumier (1646-1704) and His Drawings of French and Caribbean Fishes, the last also published by the French National Museum of Natural History.

BILINGUAL BOOK (ENGLISH - FRENCH)