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The Reluctant Mr. Darwin

An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution (Great Discoveries)

By David Quammen

(3)

| Hardcover | 9780393059816

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Book Description

A fresh look at Darwin's most radical idea, and the mysteriously slow process by which he revealed it.

Evolution, during the early nineteenth century, was an idea in the air. Other thinkers had suggested it, but no one had proposed a cogent explanation for how evolution occurs. Then, iContinue

Critics

The Cautious Evolutionist

With his face on a £10 note, Darwin is common currency in Britain. He placed fourth (right behind Diana, Princess of Wales) in the BBC’s 2002 “Great Britons” contest. Yet for much of the American heartland, Darwin is heretical, the real “devil’s chap ... (read full critics)

nytimes published on Sat, 18 Sep 2010

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin By David Quammen

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species, published in 1859, is arguably one of the best known and most influential books ever written. How Darwin arrived at his ideas of natural selection accepted, rejected and debated then and even now and wha ... (read full critics)

bookpage published on Thu, 16 Sep 2010

1 Review

A very readable, enjoyable book which takes an inside look at Charles Darwin and his lifelong efforts toward a theory of natural selection.
David Quammen is one of of my favourite National Geographic authors. He chooses to focus on Darwin after the voyage of the Beagle, providing a human, inside lo ... (continue)

A very readable, enjoyable book which takes an inside look at Charles Darwin and his lifelong efforts toward a theory of natural selection.
David Quammen is one of of my favourite National Geographic authors. He chooses to focus on Darwin after the voyage of the Beagle, providing a human, inside look at Charles Darwin; his insights, apprehensions, struggles to understand, anxieties, his good moments and dark moments. Through meticulous research, the author rebuilds what was going through Darwin's mind, both in his professional and personal life and he tells this story in an enjoyable way.
I was glad to have someone dispel the misconceptions surrounding Darwin and provide an accurate view of who he was and what he thought, with no other agenda. I also gained an appreciation for his attention to detail, voracious appetite for any helpful information, his ability to tie together widely dispersed facts, and most strikingly, his ingenious and relentless design of novel, interesting, accessible experiments. Near the end of the book, Quammen also takes us through a short step-by-step of Darwin's greatest works.
Given its size and clarity, I would suggest this book to the general reader interested in a biography of Darwin before delving into some of the excellent voluminous texts on the scientist (the best of which are recommended at the beginning of this book).
Also see David Quammen's article on Darwin in the February 2009 issue of National Geographic, and his article on Alfred Russel Wallace (co-discoverer of the Theory of Natural Selection) in the December 2008 issue.

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