Olivier Rieppel is Rowe Family Curator of Evolutionary Biology at The Field Museum in Chicago. His main current research interests focus on Triassic marine reptiles from southern China. He also contributed extensively to the comparative anatomy and evolution of modern reptiles, most notably the evolutionary origin of turtles and snakes. He published widely in the history and philosophy of comparative biology on topics as diverse as species concepts, mid-eighteenth-century French biology, and the history of phylogenetic systematics. Rieppel is on the editorial board of several peer-reviewed scientific journals and has, himself, published more than 350 scientific papers and 7 books.

The whole is a complex and compelling story that requires attention to the details of the argument. The breadth and depth of Rieppel’s coverage of these controversies is the major strength of this book. Another major strength is the analysis of what can go wrong when science is subverted by politics. For those who wish to understand the roots of phylogenetic systematics and its philosophical basis, this volume is an essential resource. E. O Wiley in The Quarterly Review of Biology.

• The Evolutionary Turn in Comparative Anatomy. Of Parts and Wholes. The Turn against Haeckel. The Rise of Holism in German Biology. The Rise of German ("Aryan") Biology. Ganzheitsbiologie. The Ideological Instrumentalization of Biology. A New Beginning: From Speciation to Phylogenetics. Grundzüge: The Conceptual Foundations of Phylogenetic Systematics. Epilogue. Literature Cited.

Olivier Rieppel is Rowe Family Curator of Evolutionary Biology at The Field Museum in Chicago. His main current research interests focus on Triassic marine reptiles from southern China. He also contributed extensively to the comparative anatomy and evolution of modern reptiles, most notably the evolutionary origin of turtles and snakes. He published widely in the history and philosophy of comparative biology on topics as diverse as species concepts, mid-eighteenth-century French biology, and the history of phylogenetic systematics. Rieppel is on the editorial board of several peer-reviewed scientific journals and has, himself, published more than 350 scientific papers and 7 books.

The whole is a complex and compelling story that requires attention to the details of the argument. The breadth and depth of Rieppel’s coverage of these controversies is the major strength of this book. Another major strength is the analysis of what can go wrong when science is subverted by politics. For those who wish to understand the roots of phylogenetic systematics and its philosophical basis, this volume is an essential resource. E. O Wiley in The Quarterly Review of Biology.

• The Evolutionary Turn in Comparative Anatomy. Of Parts and Wholes. The Turn against Haeckel. The Rise of Holism in German Biology. The Rise of German ("Aryan") Biology. Ganzheitsbiologie. The Ideological Instrumentalization of Biology. A New Beginning: From Speciation to Phylogenetics. Grundzüge: The Conceptual Foundations of Phylogenetic Systematics. Epilogue. Literature Cited.