- Paperback: 896 pages
- Publisher: WW Norton; Reprint edition (Jun 1 1994)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393311503
- ISBN-13: 978-0393311501
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.6 x 3.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #363,264 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Invaluable for its day-to-day account of Charles Darwin's activities, this monumental biography keenly conveys the English naturalist's struggle to make evolution and natural selection acceptable by presenting them as the bedrock of Victorian middle-class values. Using a trove of previously untapped material, the authors illuminate Darwin as a freethinking agnostic fearful of being labeled an anarchist, a scientific titan trapped on a literary treadmill, a voyager on the Beagle appalled at "low" races of savages, and a paterfamilias who subordinated women but was completely dependent on his wife. Above all, British authors Desmond ( The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs ) and Moore, the editorial consultant to Cambridge University's Darwin Letters Project, plunge readers into the controversies of the era as parson-hating biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, socialist Alfred Russell Wallace, free-market capitalists and radical atheists bent Darwinism to their own purposes. Photos. BOMC, History Book Club and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In 44 chapters with copious notes and massive details, Darwin scholars Desmond and Moore give a rich portrait of the gentleman naturalist and scientific theorist from a sociocultural framework emphasizing Whig-Tory conflicts and Lyellian-Malthusian speculations. The authors reveal that Darwin was particularly influenced by the evolutionary ideas of zoologist Robert Grant; the implications of fossil Argentine megatheriums, speciated Galapagos mockingbirds, and the incredible varieties of barnacles; as well as experimentation with cultivated plants and animals. Despite a doting wife, loyal friends, and belated honors (though he was never knighted), Darwin's life was filled with illness, disappointment, and tragedy (especially the death of daughter Annie at age ten). This impressive volume makes clear that Darwin suffered from a lifelong schizoid struggle between his own materialist science and a late-Victorian theology. For a deeper examination of Darwin's sickness, read John Bowlby's Charles Darwin ( LJ 3/1/91) and Ralph Colp's To Be an Invalid ( LJ 6/1/77). Darwin's final written thoughts on religion are found in Nora Barlow's indispensable The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (1959). Essential reading for evolutionists, Desmond and Moore's monumental work is highly recommended for all academic libraries. BOMC, History Book Club, and Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selections.
- H. James Birx, Canisius Coll., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- H. James Birx, Canisius Coll., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
CHARLES DARWIN'S grandfather Erasmus had a lacerating wit and a loathing of meddling gods. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
CHARLES DARWIN'S grandfather Erasmus had a lacerating wit and a loathing of meddling gods. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complete, Unbiased and Utterly Enjoyable Masterpiece,
By
This review is from: Darwin (Hardcover)
Darwin: the life of a tormented evolutionist, the title says it all. Desmond and Moore work around the idea of the tormented evolutionist as a central theme in this magnus opus of Darwins life. The reader is taken on a journey through Darwin as a young lad, collecting shells and minerals, to the debilitated, ailing old man who writes non-stop on many aspects of natural history from selection to a complete and still used encyclopedia on barnacles to orchids and earthworms. But this is not an essay merely about the life and accomplishments of Charles Darwin, it is a story about science and society in the 1800's England. Desmond and Moore create a scene of Darwin getting swept up in the events of Victorian England. They illustrate a man torn by his religious convictions and the interpretations of what all the evidence from his life's research points toward. I relished in getting to know other famous scientists such as Hooker, Wallace, Romanes, Spencer, Tyndall and Huxley, and many others from that time who were among Darwin's followers and critics (i.e. Owen, Agassiz, Duke of Argylle, Mivart, Wilberforce) A highly enjoyable book for people from all backgrounds and an absolute must read for anyone not so much interested in the complete biography of Darwin's life, but for people interested in the history and philosophy of Victorian England's science.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant biography for a brilliant scientist,
By Dixon (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Darwin (Paperback)
This is one hell of a riveting biography. I've often read biographies of really interesting people, but the writing is so turgid or lackluster, that I find myself wishing a better writer would tackle this story and do it right. Not so with this one, this is a phenomenal book.
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite Darwin biography,
This review is from: Darwin (Paperback)
Having read a few Darwin biographies, I've decided that this one is my favorite. The account is objective enough to keep my skepticism from acting up, and I actually agree with most of the analysis that usually prompts reviewers' complaints. If you've read Desmond's biography of T. H. Huxley, then count on this biography of Darwin to present less of the analyst's perspective and more the reporting flavor for which one would hope in reading a book collaboratively produced by Mr. Desmond and James Moore, a self-proclaimed "Darwin Biographer."The wealth of information in this book about Darwin's life lent a great deal of insight to my perception, as a student of natural science and as someone who is interested in the history of science, of Darwinism, its origins, and its large-scale effects on biological thought as a whole. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who is interested in evolutionary biology and its history, and certainly to anyone who wants to better appreciate the life of a man whose work changed the way we understand life.
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