Ackert’s book is replete with technical details that show a firm
grasp of the experimental work. Thus, one can learn quite a lot about
Russian language literature previously hard to access in microbiology,
soil science and ecology. There is a rich trove of ideas about
the nature of microbes at the very time when Koch and Pasteur were
making famous a medical way of categorizing them. Vinogradskii
put into actionwhat for Pasteur remained largely conceptual: a view
of microbes as ecological actors. But in addition, the book is an
important contribution to our picture of shifting disciplinary
boundaries, as well as to discussions of the not-so-black-and-white
distinction between field science and lab science. Most importantly
of all, it complicates our understanding of the streams of thought
and methodology that blended into ecology and into Vernadsky’s
biogeochemistry by 1920 or so. Thus, it is an important contribution
to environmental historydparticularly restoring the cycle of life
concept to the narrativedas well as to the history of biology.