Description
Book SynopsisStrangely beautiful, utterly unique, Specimens of Hair presents the obsessive work of a 19th-century amateur naturalist who collected hundreds upon hundreds of specimens of hair--animal and human, Including thirteen of the first fourteen U.S. presidents--in his quest to understand the mysteries of the natural world.No matter who we are, old or young, fashion conscious or style indifferent, we are all aware of hair. We wash it; we comb it; we cut, curl, and dye it. Hair can be envied or derided, and hair can provide clues to everything from age to culture to genetic identity to health. To a nineteenth-century amateur naturalist named PeterA. Browne, hair was of paramount importance: he believed it was the single physical attribute that could unravel the mystery of human evolution.
Thirty years before Charles Darwin revolutionized understanding of the descent of man, Browne vigorously collected for study what he called the pile (from the Latin word for hair, pilus)
Trade Review“Buried deep in the archives of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia is a remarkable set of 12 bound volumes containing a collection of what one 19th-century amateur naturalist believed—30 years before Charles Darwin’s "Descent of Man" was published—would unravel the mystery of human evolution: specimens of hair gathered from animals and people from all over the globe, including hair samples from 13 of the first U.S. presidents. More than 100 photographs accompany Peck’s account of the story behind these obsessively handcrafted volumes.” —Publishers Weekly
