"Following the continental carnage of the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian exploratory vessel Rurik set off in 1815 on a three-year voyage through the Pacific and Arctic oceans[AU: capitalize "Oceans"] in a quest to find the worlds most elusive geographic feature, the Northwest Passage[AU: or, Northern Passage? see end of next paragraph]. Financed by a wealthy Russian Count and commanded by a fame-seeking Captain, the vessel carried four extraordinary observers of the natural world, including an Indigenous navigator from the Caroline Islands named Kadu. The Rurik completely failed in its mission, yet, as David Igler demonstrates, the Rurik crews pursuit of "natural history" throughout the voyage and during its decades-long afterlife embodied a holistic search for knowledge through science, artistic representation, and oral tradition. The failure to achieve a great discovery was, as Igler shows, strikingly common in the great age of scientific voyaging. Explorers, natural philosophers, and traveling artists grew adept at turning apparent failure into documented achievements by claiming, publishing, and promoting a range of significant findings. No expedition did this more successfully than the crew of the Rurik, and much of their produced knowledge derived directly from the Indigenous communities they encountered in the Pacific. The Ruriks [AU: de-italicize apostrophe and "s"]personnel conveyed their discoveries through various mediums. The artist Ludwig Choris documented the experience in the first lithographic compendium of a Pacific expedition.

The navigator Kadu informed his Marshall Islander [AU: lowercase "islander" to match style in the book] elders and peers of the wonders and dangers he encountered while sailing on the Rurik. The naturalists Adelbert von Chamisso and Johann Eschscholtz produced an astonishing range of scientific studies for both scholarly and public audiences. Meanwhile, Captain Otto von Kotzebue defended his failure to locate the Northern Passage by claiming other geographic findings. All Species of Knowledge reveals the intimate and daily practice of shipboard natural history, the pivotal role of an expeditions afterlife, and the multiple meanings of failure and discovery in the pursuit of knowledge"-- Provided by publisher.