Most of the protagonists of her story are women, such as “the inestimably brave” German naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) and an American mother-daughter butterfly-tagging team.
To keep the science and history accessible rather than overwhelming, Williams wisely selects key characters, transformational moments, and illustrative species. The third section, urgent but not alarming, focuses on the environmental threats to the “goddess of color” and what we can do to ameliorate them. The second elaborates on the questions that contemporary science is currently trying to answer. In her hybrid history/science/travel text, science journalist Williams, whose previous book was a historical and scientific and cultural exploration of horses, leads readers through the body of human butterfly knowledge, driven by a guiding question: “What is it about butterflies that so easily and so universally catches the fancy of Earth’s Homo sapiens?” In the first section, the author profiles the early pioneers in butterfly breakthroughs. A merry jaunt through the past, present, and future of butterfly pop science.
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