Hearsay Is Not Excluded

“Michael R. Dove brilliantly extracts the threads that both connect and separate natural histories, bringing to life their intellectual currents and legacies. This is a startlingly original book by one of the world’s leading anthropologists.”—J. Stephen Lansing, coauthor of Islands of Order: A Guide to Complexity Modeling for the Social Sciences

“Michael R. Dove presents an elegant, erudite, and thoroughly engaging book about the field of natural history. His goal is nothing less than healing the modern breach between natural history and natural science.”—James Gustave Speth, former dean, Yale School of the Environment, and former administrator, United Nations Development Programme

“An enchanting account of the research and storytelling practices of four eminent natural historians across the last three centuries. Michael Dove shows us how a curiosity that ranges from folk tales to botany, from trade to digging sticks, is invaluable in an era of global environmental change and distrust in science.”—Andrew S. Mathews, author of Trees are Shapeshifters: How Cultivation, Climate Change and Disaster Create Landscapes

“Michael Dove shows that natural history has its own history—a history of attentive listening that bridges deep divides. By showing how naturalists and Indigenous Peoples developed spaces of knowledge exchange, he helps us find ways to create such spaces in our own times, when they are urgently needed.”—Ben Orlove, author of Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society