The evolution of Charles Darwin The epic voyage of the Beagle that forever changed our view of life on earth
Book - 2022
"When twenty-two-year-old aspiring geologist Charles Darwin boarded the HMS Beagle in 1831 with his microscopes and specimen bottles-invited by ship's captain Robert FitzRoy who wanted a travel companion at least as much as a ship's naturalist-he hardly thought he was embarking on what would become perhaps the most important and epoch-changing voyage in scientific history. Nonetheless, over the course of the five-year journey around the globe in often hard and hazardous conditions, Darwin would make observations and gather samples that would form the basis of his revolutionary theories about the origin of species and natural selection. Drawing on a rich range of revealing letters, diary entries, recollections of those who enc...ountered him, and Darwin's and FitzRoy's own accounts of what transpired, Diana Preston chronicles the epic voyage as it unfolded, tracing Darwin's growth from untested young man to accomplished adventurer and natural scientist in his own right. Darwin often left the ship to climb mountains or ride hundreds of miles, accompanied by local guides whose languages he barely understood, across pampas and through rainforests in search of further unique specimens. From the wilds of Patagonia to the Galápagos and other Atlantic and Pacific islands, as Preston vibrantly relates, he collected and contrasted giant fossils and volcanic rocks, observed the Argentinian rhea, Falklands fox, and Galápagos finch, through which he began to discern connections between deep past and present. Darwin never left Britain again after his return in 1836, though his mind journeyed far and wide to develop the theories that were first revealed, after great delay and with trepidation about their reception, in 1859 with the publication of his epochal book On the Origin of Species. Offering a unique portrait of one of history's most consequential figures, The Evolution of Charles Darwin is a vital contribution to our understanding of life on Earth"--
- Subjects
- Genres
- Biography
Biographies - Published
-
New York :
Atlantic Monthly Press
2022.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Edition
- First edition. First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition
- Item Description
- Maps on endpapers.
- Physical Description
- vii, 501 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 475-480) and index.
- ISBN
- 9780802160188
- Introduction
- Part 1. Prelude
- Chapter 1. The Selection of Darwin
- Chapter 2. "A Birthday for the Rest of My Life"
- Part 2. The Voyage of the Beagle
- Chapter 3. "Like Giving a Blind Man Eyes"
- Chapter 4. "Red-Hot with Spiders"
- Chapter 5. "Gigantic Land Animals"
- Chapter 6. Land of Fire
- Chapter 7. "Truly Savage Inhabitants"
- Chapter 8. Res Nullius
- Chapter 9. El Naturalista Don Carlos
- Chapter 10. "Great Monsters"
- Chapter 11. The Furies
- Chapter 12. "The Very Highest Pleasures"
- Chapter 13. "Skating on Very Thin Ice"
- Chapter 14. "Eternal Rambling"
- Chapter 15. The Enchanted Islands
- Chapter 16. Aphrodite's Island
- Chapter 17. "Not a Pleasant Place"
- Chapter 18. "A Rising Infant"
- Chapter 19. "Myriads of Tiny Architects"
- Chapter 20. "A Great Name among the Naturalists of Europe"
- Part 3. After the Beagle
- Chapter 21. "A Peacock Admiring His Tail"
- Chapter 22. "It Is Like Confessing a Murder"
- Chapter 23. "Most Hasty and Extraordinary Things"
- Chapter 24. "I Shall Be Forestalled"
- Chapter 25. Natural Selection
- Chapter 26. "The Clerk of the Weather"
- Chapter 27. "All Soon to Go"
- Darwin's Legacy
- Postscript "Weep for Patagonia"
- Acknowledgments
- Notes and Sources
- Bibliography
- Image Credits
- Index
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