This book, first published in 1984, examines the lifetime of Georges Cuvier, and in his constant and varying struggles to retain his position both as a politician and as a leading naturalist we find displayed almost all of the political tensions of Restoration France.

1. The Cosmopolitan Province 2. Youth, Revolution and Vocation 3. The Conquest of the City 4. Problems and Opportunities of the Empire: Science and the Imperial University 5. The Restoration and the Crisis of Patronage 6. Controversy, Authority and the Market: Lamarck, Gall and Naturphilosophie 7. Geology, History and the Shaping of a Self-Image 8. Families, Friends and Institutions: the Paris Museum of Natural History 9. Patronage and the Post-Revolutionary Elite: Enquiry and Conclusion