About the Author

David Dobbs was born in Texas and attended Oberlin College. His articles have appeared in Audubon, Popular Science, and Outside. His previous books include The Northern Forest (with Richard Ober) and The Great Gulf. He lives in Vermont.

Reviews

"Brilliantly written, sometimes almost unbearably poignant, Reef Madness provides an enthralling picture of three grand scientific minds: the stormy relationship of Louis and Alexander Agassiz and their fateful enmeshment with Charles Darwin. The coral reef story becomes a microcosm of the conflicts--between idealism and empiricism, God and evolution--which were to split science and culture in the nineteenth century and which still split them today."
--Oliver Sacks, author of Uncle Tungsten "Reef Madness eloquently demonstrates the importance of ideas. David Dobbs gives life to a debate that should simply have given insights into our past. But, surprisingly, the debate has remained very much with us, giving this book enormous contemporary relevance."
--Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt: A World History "Engaging, tantalizing, and well written. The best kind of intellectual history. Like Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club, Reef Madness brilliantly sets a small group of passionate thinkers into a living context, deftly illuminating the people, their place and time, and their vigorous, world changing arguments."
--Andrea Barrett, author of The Voyage of the Narwhal "A wonderful book! A masterful and thrilling account of the origin of coral reefs and the men who debated those origins. David Dobbs tells the complex tale of how brilliant scientists, such as Alexander Agassiz and Charles Darwin, often bitterly disagree in the search for truth and the remarkable power of scientific inquiry as it unfolds over time."
--Howard Markel, author of When Germs Travel