What do you think?
Rate this book
La Classification animale : une histoire illustrée
Phylogénétique, taxonomie, cartographie génétique, phénétique, systématique, biostratigraphie, taphonomie, génomique... de nombreuses disciplines d'aujourd'hui se sont constituées au fil du temps, à force de vouloir représenter, décrire, classer les espèces animales.
Ce livre propose de dérouler l'histoire de ces classifications, de l'Antiquité jusqu'à nos jours au travers d'une foisonnante iconographie. Associant des regards artistiques aux découvertes scientifiques, elles nous dépeignent l'univers animal sous forme de paraboles, d'arbres, de labyrinthes, comme une terra incognita, voire comme un reflet de nous-mêmes...
David Bainbridge est biologiste, vulgarisateur scientifique et anatomiste au département de médecine vétérinaire de l'université de Cambridge.
Ce livre propose de dérouler l'histoire de ces classifications, de l'Antiquité jusqu'à nos jours au travers d'une foisonnante iconographie. Associant des regards artistiques aux découvertes scientifiques, elles nous dépeignent l'univers animal sous forme de paraboles, d'arbres, de labyrinthes, comme une terra incognita, voire comme un reflet de nous-mêmes...
David Bainbridge est biologiste, vulgarisateur scientifique et anatomiste au département de médecine vétérinaire de l'université de Cambridge.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2020
60 people are currently reading
3154 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
October 20, 2020
Really beautiful book! ‘Art’ is the operative word in the title - its packed with lots and lots of colour illustrations, and it’s a quick read. This is definitely more of a history of classification rather than a guide as to how classifications are made today. It gives a fascinating overview of how philosophers and scientists organised the natural world from ancient times right up to the present day. The bulk of the book is comprised of illustrations and diagrams, accompanied by short explanations. Felt like looking through a museum. I really can’t fault this book - it was a perfect combination of my interests in science, nature, art, and history. However, if you’re looking for a guide on how to actually classify species then this won’t be the best book.
January 9, 2022
Great coffee table book on the classification of animals and the various biologists who attempted it. Beautiful images & fun drawings accompany the stories. The information is somewhat limited and lacked focus at the end of the book. Some graphs and tidbits (on global warming and meat vs other foods?) came from nowhere and were not really explained and needed. So fun book, not perfect, but nice to browse through.
April 14, 2022
As an A-Level Biology and Art student this book mixes these to very different topics and centres and my future studing in the topic of Zoology. I really enjoyed the concept, however, I hoped for a little more written work on some of the explorers / artists.
December 29, 2020
Very beautiful book, but wasn’t quite what I was expecting. A very quick read (literally finished it a couple of hours), I was hoping for more analysis (“meat” if you will). Definitely going to keep it, but more of a coffee table book than anything else.
December 1, 2023
The author presents us through text and images (many images) how human beings perceived biodiversity and their attempts to classify it throughout history. Furthermore, the author separates short chapters to address the lives of the most relevant or famous scientists. I just don't give it 5 stars because the author didn´t add a chapter for Willi Hennig, who was fundamental to the methods used today in trying to construct the evolutionary history of groups through cladistics and phylogenetic systematics.
August 9, 2021
Mooi boek, maar dan vooral vanwege de illustraties. De informatie is beknopt.
July 10, 2020
Interesting coffee table book of zoology
I loved this book. I was expecting a somewhat detailed look at animal classification with some explanatory artwork. Instead I was treated to an amazing collection of art with some description of the classification process. The descriptions were succinct and very clear. They introduced me to many biologists I had never heard of, and reintroduced me to many I was already familiar with. But the art was just outstanding. I finished this book rather quickly because I fell into the “just one more page” trap. I couldn't put the book down. I read and reviewed a PDF galley and I loved the pictures. As a print book, I can only imagine how beautiful the art would be. I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in biology.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.
I loved this book. I was expecting a somewhat detailed look at animal classification with some explanatory artwork. Instead I was treated to an amazing collection of art with some description of the classification process. The descriptions were succinct and very clear. They introduced me to many biologists I had never heard of, and reintroduced me to many I was already familiar with. But the art was just outstanding. I finished this book rather quickly because I fell into the “just one more page” trap. I couldn't put the book down. I read and reviewed a PDF galley and I loved the pictures. As a print book, I can only imagine how beautiful the art would be. I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in biology.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.
January 4, 2023
I was hoping for some more information, especially towards the end of the book. It feels like it ended abruptly. Other than that, I thought that the illustrations and overall format of the book were wonderful.
September 2, 2023
This book would get five stars for its concept - a wonderful journey through the many attempts by humans to make sense of animal diversity. It does this through the diagrams and drawings that have been produced, from 13th century biblical scenes to complex phylogenetic evolutionary trees. Along the way we are treated to some beautiful illustrations of animals or scientific research, some of them very well known, such as Alexander Von Humboldt’s extraordinary diagram of plant distributions across the Andes, but many unfamiliar to this reader. The illustrations are the main point of the book so the text is minimal, with brief overviews of the four main sections, a few short biographical sketches, and some commentary on a few of the diagrams, especially around the hijacking of human diversity to promote racist agendas.
I really felt that the book could have done a bit more with the material. We are rarely given enough information about the illustrations to be able to interpret them so readers who are biologists may find this frustrating. For example, many diagrams have labels which may be numbers or letters but we are not told what any are. We are sometimes told what a diagram was used to explain but the reader can’t see that for themselves. An exception is the final diagram where the classification is of conservation threat category and the caption gives the abbreviations we need to understand it. In addition, we never actually learn 'how zoologists organize things' - the author dismisses any taxonomic groupings above the species level but zoologists have made good use of phyla and classes for 200 years and while some classes are undermined by DNA evidence, most of the phyla remain intact. A little exploration of what constitutes a mollusc, an arthropod, an annelid etc. would have been a nice addition.
Most of these comments reflect the fact that I'm a biologist and probably not the target audience but I do have concerns about the account of Darwin which is a bit fast and loose with the facts. He was not the naturalist on the Beagle (he was employed as a gentleman companion for the captain who was concerned about his mental health), and he did not work on Darwin’s finches (he made the briefest of mentions of them in his account of the Beagle's voyage but all the research was done in the 20th Century by David Lack and Peter and Rosemary Grant).
I really felt that the book could have done a bit more with the material. We are rarely given enough information about the illustrations to be able to interpret them so readers who are biologists may find this frustrating. For example, many diagrams have labels which may be numbers or letters but we are not told what any are. We are sometimes told what a diagram was used to explain but the reader can’t see that for themselves. An exception is the final diagram where the classification is of conservation threat category and the caption gives the abbreviations we need to understand it. In addition, we never actually learn 'how zoologists organize things' - the author dismisses any taxonomic groupings above the species level but zoologists have made good use of phyla and classes for 200 years and while some classes are undermined by DNA evidence, most of the phyla remain intact. A little exploration of what constitutes a mollusc, an arthropod, an annelid etc. would have been a nice addition.
Most of these comments reflect the fact that I'm a biologist and probably not the target audience but I do have concerns about the account of Darwin which is a bit fast and loose with the facts. He was not the naturalist on the Beagle (he was employed as a gentleman companion for the captain who was concerned about his mental health), and he did not work on Darwin’s finches (he made the briefest of mentions of them in his account of the Beagle's voyage but all the research was done in the 20th Century by David Lack and Peter and Rosemary Grant).
June 9, 2025
This is something totally different from what I expected when I grabbed this book, but I found it very fascinating nevertheless.
What I expected: a critical enquiry into the history of knowledge, perhaps with elements of environmental history, highlighting how human biases impact their understanding of the natural world. (I still want to read such a book, btw! Suggestions appreciated.)
What this is: a beautiful album, highlighting how zoologists, throughout history and up to the present day, have organized things to represent them graphically! There are, indeed, essays that help situate the following representations within the context of how scientific knowledge developed, and there are very informative paragraphs accompanying individual figures, but these remain structurally secondary to the visualizations.
The good news is that anyone who decides to check out the book in a bookstore or library likely won’t experience the same confusion, as they’ll have a chance to actually flip through the pages and clearly see that this is an image-focused album rather than a text-centric nonfiction work.
I think I especially liked the fact that closer to the "present day", the focus shifts to how we actually represent the abundance of data we have about the world in a meaningful way. The circular "tree of life" in contemporary representations of the evolutionary diversity of organisms (rather than the original representations as a kind of tree with branches from the times of Darwin and Wallace) reminds me of a similar "tree of life" that I can generate for myself every year on iNaturalist, based on the species I’ve observed that year.
Publication date July 22, 2025.
Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an eARC through Edelweiss+. The opinion above is my own.
What I expected: a critical enquiry into the history of knowledge, perhaps with elements of environmental history, highlighting how human biases impact their understanding of the natural world. (I still want to read such a book, btw! Suggestions appreciated.)
What this is: a beautiful album, highlighting how zoologists, throughout history and up to the present day, have organized things to represent them graphically! There are, indeed, essays that help situate the following representations within the context of how scientific knowledge developed, and there are very informative paragraphs accompanying individual figures, but these remain structurally secondary to the visualizations.
The good news is that anyone who decides to check out the book in a bookstore or library likely won’t experience the same confusion, as they’ll have a chance to actually flip through the pages and clearly see that this is an image-focused album rather than a text-centric nonfiction work.
I think I especially liked the fact that closer to the "present day", the focus shifts to how we actually represent the abundance of data we have about the world in a meaningful way. The circular "tree of life" in contemporary representations of the evolutionary diversity of organisms (rather than the original representations as a kind of tree with branches from the times of Darwin and Wallace) reminds me of a similar "tree of life" that I can generate for myself every year on iNaturalist, based on the species I’ve observed that year.
Publication date July 22, 2025.
Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an eARC through Edelweiss+. The opinion above is my own.
August 7, 2025
One of our most distinctive aspects as humans is that we need to know where everything came from and how it works. This book illustrates the history of our curiosity from the viewpoint of the (mostly) Global North which the author has divided into,
1. Folk law and religiosity of ancient and medieval worlds.
2. Naturalists cataloguing of the Enlightenment
3. Evolutionary trees and maps of 19th century
4. Modern computer-hued classificatory labyrinth.
It isn’t in depth - even the most outstanding leaps in understanding get relatively short text but there is a huge amount to think about here. Researchers and scientists of all sorts grappled with world-reshaping information, sometimes from partly understood beginnings. They shared knowledge, theories and ideas developing and learning. Sometimes they ended in cul-de-sacs and some of the most important ideas got overlooked. Every researcher of any kind brings their personal beliefs and attitudes to work, neither we nor our views of the world are neutral. So some of the work here was limited by personal beliefs but often new developments pushed people to change their ideas. Sometimes men patronised women scientists while others used “science” to justify racism and perpetuate slavery, which got me thinking about some gaps here. This could have included enormously influential 20th century biologists working consciously in society for the application of science to be progressive. Vladimir Stanchinsky, JB Haldane, Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould and Rachel Carson come to mind
Nevertheless, it’s worth reading for the juxtaposition and uneven development of discoveries that are wonderful in the truest sense. Many of the people and ideas illustrated here are inspiring and the searching curiosity never, ever ends.
1. Folk law and religiosity of ancient and medieval worlds.
2. Naturalists cataloguing of the Enlightenment
3. Evolutionary trees and maps of 19th century
4. Modern computer-hued classificatory labyrinth.
It isn’t in depth - even the most outstanding leaps in understanding get relatively short text but there is a huge amount to think about here. Researchers and scientists of all sorts grappled with world-reshaping information, sometimes from partly understood beginnings. They shared knowledge, theories and ideas developing and learning. Sometimes they ended in cul-de-sacs and some of the most important ideas got overlooked. Every researcher of any kind brings their personal beliefs and attitudes to work, neither we nor our views of the world are neutral. So some of the work here was limited by personal beliefs but often new developments pushed people to change their ideas. Sometimes men patronised women scientists while others used “science” to justify racism and perpetuate slavery, which got me thinking about some gaps here. This could have included enormously influential 20th century biologists working consciously in society for the application of science to be progressive. Vladimir Stanchinsky, JB Haldane, Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould and Rachel Carson come to mind
Nevertheless, it’s worth reading for the juxtaposition and uneven development of discoveries that are wonderful in the truest sense. Many of the people and ideas illustrated here are inspiring and the searching curiosity never, ever ends.
July 15, 2020
Zum Inhalt
Humankind’s fascination with the animal kingdom began as a matter of survival – differentiating the edible from the toxic, the ferocious from the tractable. Since then, our compulsion to catalogue wildlife has played a key role in growing our understanding of the planet and ourselves, inspiring religious beliefs and evolving scientific theories. The book unveils wild truths and even wilder myths about animals, as perpetuated by zoologists – revealing how much more there is to learn, and unlearn.
Long before Darwin, our ancestors were obsessed with the visual similarities and differences between the animals. Early scientists could sense there was an order that unified all life and formulated a variety of schemes to help illustrate this. This human quest to classify living beings has left us with a rich artistic legacy, from the folklore and religiosity of the ancient and Medieval world through the naturalistic cataloging of the Enlightenment to the modern, computer-generated classificatory labyrinth.
This book tells the fascinating, visual story of this process. The wonderful zoological charts reflect prevailing artistic trends and scientific discoveries, as well as telling us as much about ourselves as they do about the creatures depicted.
Meine Meinung:
.. when I was little, I used to browse through my parents and grandparents books - I loved those old encyclopdias with old pictures in it. I didn´t care about the information, only for those illustrations. And today I felt little again, great illsutrations and a little information. I loved to browse through it! I definetly recommend this for everyone, just for fun.
Note: 1+++ or A+
Thanks for letting me dive into my childhood again with this nice ARC - the given opinion is mine!
Humankind’s fascination with the animal kingdom began as a matter of survival – differentiating the edible from the toxic, the ferocious from the tractable. Since then, our compulsion to catalogue wildlife has played a key role in growing our understanding of the planet and ourselves, inspiring religious beliefs and evolving scientific theories. The book unveils wild truths and even wilder myths about animals, as perpetuated by zoologists – revealing how much more there is to learn, and unlearn.
Long before Darwin, our ancestors were obsessed with the visual similarities and differences between the animals. Early scientists could sense there was an order that unified all life and formulated a variety of schemes to help illustrate this. This human quest to classify living beings has left us with a rich artistic legacy, from the folklore and religiosity of the ancient and Medieval world through the naturalistic cataloging of the Enlightenment to the modern, computer-generated classificatory labyrinth.
This book tells the fascinating, visual story of this process. The wonderful zoological charts reflect prevailing artistic trends and scientific discoveries, as well as telling us as much about ourselves as they do about the creatures depicted.
Meine Meinung:
.. when I was little, I used to browse through my parents and grandparents books - I loved those old encyclopdias with old pictures in it. I didn´t care about the information, only for those illustrations. And today I felt little again, great illsutrations and a little information. I loved to browse through it! I definetly recommend this for everyone, just for fun.
Note: 1+++ or A+
Thanks for letting me dive into my childhood again with this nice ARC - the given opinion is mine!
July 12, 2020
How Zoologists Organize Things: The Art of Classification by David Bainbridge is a beautiful and fascinating look at the evolution of both science and art through history. Namely, through the lens of classification we see how the science has changed and how the visual presentation of that science, the art, has changed.
I first flipped, electronically, through the book, looking at the many images and reading a few little snippets. I intended to then set it aside, finish another couple of books I was reading, then come back to read it. Well, I ended up immediately starting it after going through it and fit it in with my other reading. The writing itself was adequate, maybe a little dry at times, but not overly so. The material, however, more than kept my interest and even the few times when I thought the writing was dry I never lost interest.
But to be honest I think the real value of the book is in the wealth of images. The text is absolutely necessary to contextualize everything and tell the story, but the pictures are what most readers will remember. I kept taking my tablet into the other room to show the pictures and talk about what they represented both historically and scientifically. A physical copy of this book would no doubt be even more appealing.
I would recommend this to both the science reader as well as the casual reader of nice coffee table books or books of photographs or artwork. The information is detailed enough to be useful if you're interested in learning and the images are just wonderful to look at.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
I first flipped, electronically, through the book, looking at the many images and reading a few little snippets. I intended to then set it aside, finish another couple of books I was reading, then come back to read it. Well, I ended up immediately starting it after going through it and fit it in with my other reading. The writing itself was adequate, maybe a little dry at times, but not overly so. The material, however, more than kept my interest and even the few times when I thought the writing was dry I never lost interest.
But to be honest I think the real value of the book is in the wealth of images. The text is absolutely necessary to contextualize everything and tell the story, but the pictures are what most readers will remember. I kept taking my tablet into the other room to show the pictures and talk about what they represented both historically and scientifically. A physical copy of this book would no doubt be even more appealing.
I would recommend this to both the science reader as well as the casual reader of nice coffee table books or books of photographs or artwork. The information is detailed enough to be useful if you're interested in learning and the images are just wonderful to look at.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
June 10, 2025
This is not a book for everyone. It is a textbook. The subject in many ways is far beyond me. And the title is misleading. This is a history of classification.
After saying that I had trouble understanding many things, let me say that the historical pictures were amazing. There were quite a few I wished I could blow up or click on links, but this is a hardback book. And things like the tree used to describe species has changed from a tree to a trunk. Oh, and there is now a strong theory that some of evolution could be do to contact between entities. Like viruses pass on certain DNA parts. Or they've found that, what was it, bacteria maybe? They can pass DNA between themselves.
Oh, and the insane factoid I've found is that whereas we have one pair of chromosones for sexual identity (X and Y), the platypus has 5 pairs of chromosones for sexual identity. How many different sexes could that produce anyway????
Again, this is a textbook. And I loved the pictures.
After saying that I had trouble understanding many things, let me say that the historical pictures were amazing. There were quite a few I wished I could blow up or click on links, but this is a hardback book. And things like the tree used to describe species has changed from a tree to a trunk. Oh, and there is now a strong theory that some of evolution could be do to contact between entities. Like viruses pass on certain DNA parts. Or they've found that, what was it, bacteria maybe? They can pass DNA between themselves.
Oh, and the insane factoid I've found is that whereas we have one pair of chromosones for sexual identity (X and Y), the platypus has 5 pairs of chromosones for sexual identity. How many different sexes could that produce anyway????
Again, this is a textbook. And I loved the pictures.
July 20, 2020
I loved this book about the history of how zoologists organize the living things on this planet. Written and explained in a way that even the non-science person can relate and learn. The telling of how the science of classification progressed from the readings in the bible , through Linnaeus and Darwin, to lesser known scientists like Anna Atkins and the crazy ideas of Josiah Nott put into perspective how scientists build ideas and change their ideas based on knowledge passed down. I wish I would have had a book like this for the introduction to my Evolutionary Biology class in college. It's never too late to keep learning and this book will be kept in my collection to share. Diagrams and charts in this book are beyond informational and interesting.
February 6, 2021
I spent the entirety of my childhood "preparing" to become a zoologist. I'm talking Mead composition notebooks filled with notes, going through the encyclopedia (because you know, this was pre-google days) A-Z to read about animals - especially frogs. So with that said, I was immediately drawn to this.
This is a beautiful book, it's a quick read but filled with some really interesting and gorgeous pictures and paintings from across the ages showing just how far we've come in understanding life. You don't have to have spent your childhood obsessed with animals to enjoy, so I highly suggest adding this one to your coffee table to flip through again and again.
This is a beautiful book, it's a quick read but filled with some really interesting and gorgeous pictures and paintings from across the ages showing just how far we've come in understanding life. You don't have to have spent your childhood obsessed with animals to enjoy, so I highly suggest adding this one to your coffee table to flip through again and again.
Read
May 15, 2021This is a very good book, what you might call "coffee table lite," in that it is hardback, well-made, & has lots of pictures. But also you can read through it front-to-back pretty easily and pretty quickly. It traces the history of the art of classifying animals—from medieval bestiaries where the artists just could not figure out how to draw animal faces differently from human faces, to famous tree of life drawings by Darwin & Haeckel, to modern phylogenetic data visualizations. There should be more books like this.
March 25, 2023
The collection of art and graphic design in this book is absolutely incredible, so I’d recommend it as a coffee table book if you only want it for that purpose. The text content, however, leaves something to be desired. Toward the middle of the book, the author talks about how taxonomy was used to perpetuate disinformation to support racist policies, which is (obviously) bad. But the topic kind of ends there, and there’s no follow up about how zoologists/taxonomists/the scientific community tried to rectify this gigantic moral and factual lapse.
July 20, 2020
Whether you have studied classification or are interested in the history of classification you will love this illustrated book that easily explains the scientists who put together the reasons and drawings to explain how everything on this planet has come to be classified. Learned of scientists who have contributed but are not usually brought up in conversation on this topic. Graphs, writings, and drawings are great! Wish I had this for a pre read for my Evolutionary Biology class in college.
July 31, 2020
I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
This is a stunning book for art and nature lovers alike. Chronicling the art and science of classifying the natural world from the religiosity of medieval times, the naturalist enlightenment period, the evolution theories of the nineteenth century, and culminating in modern computer-empowered classification. This books is the equivalent of visiting a museum where entries are extremely beautiful art pieces and illustrations curated by a thorough researcher.
This is a stunning book for art and nature lovers alike. Chronicling the art and science of classifying the natural world from the religiosity of medieval times, the naturalist enlightenment period, the evolution theories of the nineteenth century, and culminating in modern computer-empowered classification. This books is the equivalent of visiting a museum where entries are extremely beautiful art pieces and illustrations curated by a thorough researcher.
August 1, 2020
This was a beautiful book. The illustrations that the author chose to accompany the text were stunning. This would be the perfect book for someone who is looking at zoology from an artistic point of view. The information provided in the text was a good, basic description of classification that would allow everyone to understand the complexities of the subject matter.
May 24, 2021
This book was of interest to me as I majored in Biology in college and had many of the then current lists memorized so it was an update of interest for me. Many interesting advances made in this area in a time oriented study , general thoughts on classification theory in different eras and great illustrations!
August 1, 2023
Not what I was expecting but a beautiful book about the art and history of science of categorization. I read it in a day. The writing was a tone of erudition and reminded me of my days at Cambridge. I ultimately found it ok. Fascinating but the intro fell flat to me. Fun to browse through. Nuggets of knowledge but ultimately not what I was looking for. No fault of the book but my own.
December 30, 2020
Such a beautiful book! I not only loved the art, but I loved the history of how the science has grown and changed over time, and its implications. I also loved the snippets of witty humor subtly sprinkled in ;) I’ve always been a bio nerd, and this book re-ignited my passion!! Thanks for putting this together, David Bainbridge!!
August 18, 2022
One of the coolest books I own, by far. It is incredibly beautiful as well as educational. Taxonomy isn’t always a subject people care for, myself included, but this book is engaging and well done that even those who are not big “fans” of taxonomy can enjoy it.
June 21, 2023
2.25 ★ — This is a meh for me, a bunch of images with barely any interesting or well explained information about it. Supremely
unorganised
book. Rare to find something really interesting innit. But at least I’ve discovered new artists.
August 19, 2020
This book shows the evolution of scientific understanding of animal classification paired with the artwork of the same period. A beautiful addition to the naturalist or animal art lover's library.
November 8, 2020
So beautiful. So cool. Loved learning about Maria Merion!
Read
March 1, 202110 points for aesthetic value.
3 points for scientific value.
A book made for the Pinterest generation; lots if scrolling, little reading.
3 points for scientific value.
A book made for the Pinterest generation; lots if scrolling, little reading.
April 5, 2021
Wijze combinatie tussen kunst, geschiedenis en wetenschap! Prachtige illustraties met een korte uitleg om ze natuurhistorisch te plaatsen. Een must- read!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews