Gould writes about the themes that have defined his career, which his readers have come to expect and celebrate, casting new light upon them and conveying the ideas that science professionals exchange among themselves (minus the technical jargon). Here, of course, is Charles Darwin, from his centrality to any sound scientific education to little-known facts about his life. Gould touches on subjects as far-reaching and disparate as feathered dinosaurs, the scourge of syphilis and the frustration of the man who identified it, and Freud's evolutionary fantasy. He writes brilliantly of Nabokov's delicately crafted drawings of butterflies and the true meaning of biological diversity. And in the poignant title essay, he details his grandfather's journey from Hungary to America, where he arrived on September 11, 1901. It is from his grandfather's journal entry of that day, stating simply I have landed, that the book's title was drawn. This landing occurred 100 years to the day before our greatest recent tragedy, also explored, but with optimism, in the concluding section of the book.

Presented in eight parts, I Have Landed begins with a remembrance of a moment of wonder from childhood. In Part II, Gould explains that humanistic disciplines are not antithetical to theoretical or applied sciences. Rather, they often share a commonality of method and motivation, with great potential to enhance the achievements of each other, an assertion perfectly supported by essays on such notables as Nabokov and Frederic Church.

Part III contains what no Gould collection would be complete without: his always compelling mini intellectual biographies, which render each subject and his work deserving of reevaluation and renewed significance. In this collection of figures compelling and strange, Gould exercises one of his greatest strengths, the ability to reveal a significant scientific concept through a finely crafted and sympathetic portrait of the person behind the science. Turning his pen to three key figures--Sigmund Freud, Isabelle Duncan, and E. Ray Lankester, the latter an unlikely attendee of the funeral of Karl Marx--he highlights the effect of the Darwinian revolution and its resonance on their lives and work.

Part IV encourages the reader--through what Gould calls intellectual paleontology--to consider scientific theories of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in a new light and to recognize the limitations our own place in history may impose on our understanding of those ideas. Part V explores the op-ed genre and includes two essays with differing linguistic formats, which address the continual tug-of-war between the study of evolution and creationism.

In subsequent essays, in true Gould fashion, we are treated to moments of good humor, especially when he leads us to topics that bring him obvious delight, such as Dorothy Sayers novels and his enduring love of baseball and all its dramas. There is an ardent admiration of the topsy-turvy world of Gilbert and Sullivan (wonderfully demonstrated in the jacket illustration), who are not above inclusion in all things evolutionary.

This is truly Gould's most personal work to date. How fitting that this final collection should be his most revealing and, in content, the one that reflects most clearly the complexity, breadth of knowledge, and optimism that characterize Gould himself. I Have Landed succeeds in reinforcing Gould's underlying and constant theme from the series' commencement thirty years ago--the study of our own scientific, intellectual, and emotional evolution--bringing reader and author alike to what can only be described as a brilliantly written and very natural conclusion.

From the Hardcover edition.

1. I have landed
2. No science without fancy, no art without facts : the lepidoptery of Vladimir Nabokov
3. Jim Bowie's letter and Bill Buckner's legs
4. True embodiment of everything that's excellent
5. Art meets science in The heart of the Andes : Church paints, Humboldt dies, Darwin writes, and nature blinks in the fateful year of 1859
6. Darwinian gentleman at Marx's funeral : resolving evolution's oddest coupling
7. Pre-Adamite in a nutshell
8. Freud's evolutionary fantasy
9. Jew and the jewstone
10. When fossils were young
11. Syphilis and the shepherd of Atlantis
12. Darwin and the munchkins of Kansas
13. Darwin's more stately mansion
14. Darwin for all reasons
15. When less is truly more
16. Darwin's cultural degree
17. Without and within of smart mice
18. What does the dreaded "E" word mean anyway? --First day of the rest of our life
19. Narthex of San Marco and the pangenetic paradigm
20. Linnaeus's luck? --Abscheulich! (atrocious) --Tales of a feathered tail
21. Evolutionary perspective on the concept of native plants
22. Age-old fallacies of thinking and stinking
23. Geometer of race
24. Great physiologist of Heidelberg
25. Good people of Halifax
26. Apple brown betty
27. Woolworth Building
28. September 11, '01.