In 1831, Charles Darwin embarked on his first voyage. Though he was a scientist by profession, he was an explorer at heart. While journeying around South America for the first time aboard a ninety-foot-long ship named the Beagle, Charles collected insets, dug up bones, galloped with gauchos, encountered volcanoes and earthquakes, and even ate armadillo for breakfast! The discoveries he made during this adventure would later inspire ideas that changed how we see the world. Complete with mesmerizing map work that charts Darwin's thrilling five-year voyage, as well as "Fun Facts" and more, Charles Darwin's Around-the-World Adventure captures the beauty and mystery of nature with wide-eyed wonder.
Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, his revolutionary tract on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859. Nearly 150 years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between the scientific and religious communities. Challenges about teaching the theory of evolution in schools occur annually all over the country. This same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important part in his marriage: his wife, Emma, was quite religious, and her faith gave Charles a lot to think about as he worked on a theory that continues to spark intense debates. Deborah Heiligman's new biography of Charles Darwin is a thought-provoking account of the man behind evolutionary theory: how his personal life affected his work and vice versa. The end result is an engaging exploration of history, science, and religion for young readers. Charles and Emma is a 2009 National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature.
Everybody knows—or thinks they know—Charles Darwin, the father of evolution and the man who altered the way we view our place in the world. But what most people do not know is that Darwin was on board the HMS Beagle as a geologist—on a mission to examine the land, not flora and fauna.Tracing Darwin’s footsteps in South America and beyond, geologist Rob Wesson sets out on a trek across the Andes, repeating the nautical surveys made by the Beagle’s crew, hunting for fossils in Uruguay and Argentina, and explores traces of long vanished glaciers in Scotland and Wales. By following Darwin’s path literally and intellectually, Rob experiences the landscape that absorbed Darwin, followed his reasoning about what he saw, and immerses himself in the same questions about the earth. Upon Darwin’s return from the five-year journey, he conceived his theory of tectonics—his first theory. These concepts and attitudes—the vastness of time; the enormous cumulative impact of almost imperceptibly slow change; change as a constant feature of the environment—underlie his subsequent discoveries in evolution. And this peculiar way of thinking remains vitally important today as we enter the Anthropocene.
Darwin made a powerful argument for evolution in the Origin of Species, based on all the evidence available to him. But a few things puzzled him. One was how inheritance works - he did not know about genes. This book concerns another of Darwin's Dilemmas, and the efforts of modern palaeontologists to solve it. What puzzled Darwin is that the most very ancient rocks, before the Cambrian, seemed to be barren, when he would expect them to be teeming with life. Darwin speculated that this was probably because the fossils had not been found yet. Decades of work by modern palaeontologists have indeed brought us amazing fossils from far beyond the Cambrian, from the depths of the Precambrian, so life was certainly around. Yet the fossils are enigmatic, and something does seem to happen around the Cambrian to speed up evolution drastically and produce many of the early forms of animals we know today. In this book, Martin Brasier, a leading palaeontologist working on early life, takes us into the deep, dark ages of the Precambrian to explore Darwin's Lost World. Decoding the evidence in these ancient rocks, piecing together the puzzle of what happened over 540 million years ago to drive what is known as the Cambrian Explosion, is very difficult. The world was vastly different then from the one we know now, and we are in terrain with few familiar landmarks. Brasier is a master storyteller, and combines the account of what we now know of the strange creatures of these ancient times with engaging and amusing anecdotes from his expeditions to Siberia, Outer Mongolia, Barbuda, and other places, giving a vivid impression of the people, places, and challenges involved in such work. He ends by presenting his own take on the Cambrian Explosion, based on the picture emerging from this very active field of research. A vital clue involves worms - burrowing worms are one of the key signs of the start of the Cambrian. This is fitting: Darwin was inordinately fond of worms.
“One day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth.” At the age of 22 Charles Darwin clambered up the steps of HMS Beagle, armed with enough notepads to last him for several years and set sail on a journey of exploration that would change his life and how we view the entire world forever. This book tells the story of Charles Darwin, and shows how his revolutionary research changed the world forever. From his fascination with the natural world which began at an early age, his love of collecting new specimens and keen eye for observation, to his groundbreaking theory of evolution, uncover the incredible life of Charles Darwin with this beautifully illustration narrative non-fiction book. Published to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the launch of the HMS Beagle, this is the perfect book for any child who has ever looked at the world and asked ‘why’.
Syms Covington has landed the job of a lifetime on Charles Darwin’s ship. But after being shipwrecked on a Galapagos island, he makes a discovery that could change the world—and make his fortune. Should he share his find, or will it lead to the extinction of a legendary species?
In Darwin's Mother, curious beasts are excavated in archeological digs, Charles Darwin's daughter describes the challenges of breeding pigeons, and a forest of trees shift and sigh in their sleep. With a keen sense of irony that rejects an anthropocentric worldview and an imagination both philosophical and playful, the poems in this collection are marked by a tireless curiosity about the intricate workings of life, consciousness, and humanity's place in the universe.
A compelling portrait of a unique moment in American history when the ideas of Charles Darwin reshaped American notions about nature, religion, science and race “A lively and informative history.” – The New York Times Book Review Throughout its history America has been torn in two by debates over ideals and beliefs. Randall Fuller takes us back to one of those turning points, in 1860, with the story of the influence of Charles Darwin’s just-published On the Origin of Species on five American intellectuals, including Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, the child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace, and the abolitionist Franklin Sanborn. Each of these figures seized on the book’s assertion of a common ancestry for all creatures as a powerful argument against slavery, one that helped provide scientific credibility to the cause of abolition. Darwin’s depiction of constant struggle and endless competition described America on the brink of civil war. But some had difficulty aligning the new theory to their religious convictions and their faith in a higher power. Thoreau, perhaps the most profoundly affected all, absorbed Darwin’s views into his mysterious final work on species migration and the interconnectedness of all living things. Creating a rich tableau of nineteenth-century American intellectual culture, as well as providing a fascinating biography of perhaps the single most important idea of that time, The Book That Changed America is also an account of issues and concerns still with us today, including racism and the enduring conflict between science and religion.
