The Power of Life by Jessica Riskin is a readable, argument-driven history of biology that reconsiders Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, showing why his ideas were dismissed for so long and why parts of them now look unexpectedly relevant in the age of epigenetics. The book’s core claim is not that Darwin was wrong, but that living organisms also help shape evolution and even their environments.kirkusreviews
Riskin argues that Lamarck was not simply the “giraffes stretch their necks” caricature, but a serious thinker who saw life as active, adaptive, and responsive.kirkusreviews
The book connects Lamarck’s older ideas to modern epigenetics, where some traits can be influenced by experience and passed down without changing DNA itself.kirkusreviews
It broadens the discussion beyond inheritance to ask how organisms and environments interact over time.kirkusreviews
It sounds intellectually ambitious but still accessible, because it ties historical ideas to current science in a clear way.kirkusreviews
The book’s big strength is its revisionist energy: it restores complexity to a thinker who was long reduced to a joke.kirkusreviews
Review coverage describes it as well-written and exciting in the way it links history, biology, and philosophy.kirkusreviews
A likely weakness is that its argument depends on a broad re-reading of Lamarck, so readers looking for a strictly conventional biology book may find it more interpretive than technical.kirkusreviews
Because it makes a large philosophical claim about life, some readers may want more caution in drawing lessons from epigenetics than the book seems to offer.kirkusreviews
It may also feel dense to anyone who prefers a simpler popular-science narrative rather than a history of ideas.kirkusreviews
Readers interested in the history of science, evolution, and scientific controversy will get the most from it.kirkusreviews
It should appeal to intellectually curious general readers who enjoy books that connect old debates to current research.kirkusreviews
It is especially good for readers who like science writing with a humanities angle: history, philosophy, and big questions about what life is.kirkusreviews
If you want, I can also turn this into a shorter blog-style review paragraph.