Behind the Book: Historian Jessica Riskin on The Power of Life

Stanford Public Humanities invites you to join us for an event and lively conversation celebrating the release of historian Jessica Riskin's new book The Power of Life (Riverhead Books/Penguin, March 24, 2026). The French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented figures in the history of science. Working in Paris in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, he proposed the first evolutionary theory of life and with it a new science: biology. But his bold reimagining of nature was as radical as it was heretical, earning him formidable enemies and consigning him to the margins of science for the past two centuries. In The Power of Life Riskin tells the story of Lamarck’s life and work as an intense struggle between rival forces to answer questions that remain foundational to our modern worldview: What is a living being, and what is science?

Jessica Riskin will be in conversation with Tom Hayden, Director of Stanford's Graduate Environmental Communication Program. They will discuss everything from how to wrangle controversial scientific ideas into a compelling story to the journey of writing a book for a popular audience. Book selling and signing to follow.

This event is cosponsored by the Departments of History and Biology, the Program in Human Biology, the Earth Systems Environmental Communication Program, and the Stanford Humanities Center.

About the Speakers

Jessica Riskin is the Frances and Charles Field Professor of History at Stanford University, where she teaches modern European history and the history of science. Her work examines the changing nature of scientific explanation, the relations of science, culture and politics, and the history of theories of life and mind. Her books include The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick (2016) and Science in the Age of Sensibility (2002). She is a regular contributor to various publications including Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books and the New York Review of Books.

Tom Hayden is the founding director of Stanford’s graduate program in Environmental Communication. His students engage with the full range of science and environmental communication, including journalism, multimedia production, strategic and policy communications, education, and art. Hayden trained as an oceanographer and came to Stanford in 2008 following a career in magazine journalism at publications including Newsweek and US News & World Report. He is coauthor of two books and co-editor of The Science Writers’ Handbook.