Philipp Blom's To Have and to Hold is a study of singular obsession. Unsurprisingly, the book's eclectic scope resembles its eccentric subject matter — the comprehensive collection of trivia, anecdotes, and profiles evokes the very cabinets of wonder and assortments of kitsch that it describes.

Blom begins his account by examining how the 16th century's scientific and geographic discoveries shifted the boundaries of desire from the precious to the peculiar. While books, art, and religious relics have always had an implicit allure — particularly for the royal and the rich — the author explains how the age of exploration diversified the objects of interest and altered the definitions of material status. Descriptions of the taxidermy and rare oddities — from insects and coins to "unicorn horns" and "dragon claws" — that were eagerly traded among mid-millennium sailors, scholars, and civilians help to establish the book's thematic eccentricity.

By the 18th century, however, the urge for the unusual turned into the pursuit of knowledge — and, with it, the rise of alpha taxonomy. Blom describes how the earnest acquisition and classification of unknown species resulted in a series of knock-off Noah's Arks that, for lack of a better purpose, would eventually become Europe's first science museums. In addition to chronicling these evolving social trends, this impeccably researched book includes sections on Peter the Great's assortment of teeth, Alex Shear's warehouses of '50s memorabilia, Franz Joseph Gall's house of skulls, and the surfeit of churches in medieval France that claim to possess Jesus' foreskin.

Although the caricature of the collector often connotes both overindulgence and extreme behavior, the desires and fears that reside within us all prompt collecting, Blom suggests. Modern materialism and death-denial consumerism are, after all, manifestations of this same impulse. Blom, however, is more interested in historical excavation than social analysis, and — despite the futility of an inherently infinite endeavor — To Have and to Hold is an engaging survey of history's most idiosyncratic compulsion.

-Chelsea Bauch