"The nineteenth century was a transformative period in the history of American science, as scientific study, once the domain of armchair enthusiasts and amateurs, became the purview of professional experts and institutions. In Mischievous Creatures, historian Catherine McNeur shows that women were central to the development of the natural sciences during this critical time. She does so by uncovering the forgotten lives of entomologist Margaretta Hare...

"Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as an escape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanged by the undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, travelling the globe to study ancient organisms. When a trench is discovered in the Atlantic ocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of the earth's first life forms--what she instead finds calls into question everything we know about...

"A story centered around one of the great geniuses of the modern age, the Hungarian polymath John von Neumann, tracing the uncanny circuit of his mind deep into our own time's most haunting dilemmas"--