The year was 1765. Eminent botanist Philibert Commerson had just been appointed to a grand new expedition the first French circumnavigation of the world. As the ships' official naturalist, Commerson would seek out resources--medicines, spices, timber, food--that could give the French an edge in the ever-accelerating race for empire. pJeanne Baret, Commerson's young mistress and collaborator, was desperate not to be left behind. She disguised herself as a teenage boy and signed on as his assistant. The journey made the twenty-six-year-old, known to her shipmates as Jean rather than Jeanne, the first woman to ever sail around the globe. Yet so little is known about this extraordinary woman, whose accomplishments were considered to be subversive, even impossible for someone of her sex and class. pWhen the ships made landfall and the secret lovers disembarked to explore, Baret carried heavy wooden field presses and bulky optical instruments over beaches and hills, impressing observers on t