Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), was a naturalist, explorer, president for
more than forty years of the Royal Society, Britain's oldest scientific
institution, and one of Australia's founding fathers. He first rose to
fame when, as a young botanist, he accompanied Captain Cook on his epic
circumnavigation that resulted in the discovery of Australia. He was a
central figure in a generation that transformed an insular monarchy into
a modern industrial powerhouse. Yet a complete picture of Banks's long
life has never emerged from the vast archive left at his death. The
young Banks sailed on expeditions to North America and Iceland as well
as the Pacific; he was also instrumental in establishing Kew Gardens as
one of the world's greatest botanical centers. An indefatigable
correspondent, he had a wide circle of friends and associates, including
Cuvier, Watt, Samuel Johnson, and Edward Gibbon. Patrick O'Brian's
masterful biography, which makes full use of Banks's letters and
journals (some hitherto unknown), brings from the shadows a man of
enduring importance. Banks emerges as a cheerful, forthright, and
hospitable man whose true genius lay in promoting the enthusiasms of
others. His legacy survives not only in his magnificent Florilegium, the
record of his botanical studies in the South Seas, but in the
development of the Australian continent and the tenor and tradition of
subsequent scientific enterprise. Joseph Banks: A Life, gracefully
written by one of England's prose masters, provides a fascinating
overview of a full and important life.
