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Title: Charles Darwin: Voyaging ISBN: 0-691-02606-8 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Reads like a novel
Comment: Though it never lacks for details about Darwin's life, Janet Browne creates a panoramic sweep of Victorian science. One sees Darwin in full context, as a man of his time struggling with ideas that grew from his research and explorations and yet they were ideas that he himself was not truly comfortable with.
Browne presents the story without a lots of overdramatization. The book is hugely dramatic though the drama comes from the details and not the presentation. It is not a hagiography. There no kettle drums rumbling in the background.
When you read the book you will gain insights into how science grew from an amateur affectation of afternoon beetle collecting trips to the countryside, to a fully recognized profession. Browne miraculously pulls this off without ever leaving sight of Darwin and his life.
Like a good "Perils of Pauline" Saturday morning serial, the volume I leaves off at the most incisive part of Darwin's career, thus leaving thousands of readers waiting breathlessly for Volume II.
The book seems so complete so I passed on reading any other biographies of Darwin, but I did find Adrian Desmond's Huxley : From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest to be a good companion work and interim filler. T.H. Huxley took up Darwin's cause and became known as "Darwin's Bulldog" This was however just one role that Huxley filled. Huxley himself is also giant of the emerging science movement in Victorian England.
I feel that part of my life is missing until Browne's Volume II arrives.
Rating: 5
Summary: Simply the Best of the Best
Comment: Janet Browne has done something that is very hard to do. She has written the best biography so far produced of a man who's life has been examined numerous times- Charles Darwin. I have read at least four or five biographies of Darwin, plus his own autobiography, and can say that for engrossing detail, without loosing the main thread, Browne has topped them all! This is the first volume in a two-volume series and I can't wait to dig into the second part, which deals with the Origin of Species and after.
The main strength of Browne's book, Charles Darwin: Voyaging, (and I expect the main strength of her second volume) is that she has a fantastic ability to weave details into the story without getting bogged down. This is a well-written and very well researched book and I found myself amazed at some of the material she had found on Darwin's earlier life, especially as a medical student in Edinburgh. The book is almost a social and scientific history of England starting with the late Georgian period. However, Browne makes the historic references very pertinent to her story. Anybody reading this book and (I'm sure) the second volume, will come away with a much deeper understanding of and appreciation for the struggle that has gone into the development of our modern worldview. Darwin certainly had his flaws, as do we all, but he was also certainly one of the most admirable of men, despite all his human failings. Browne makes us understand why this man was great and how he reached this greatness by following his curiosity beyond the superficial. She also gives us a more detailed understanding as to why Darwin found solace in natural history, instead of following his father, Robert, into the medical profession.
This is certainly just the best book to read to understand Darwin's early life before the publication of the Origin of Species. I recommend it without any reservation.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Wonderfully Pleasant Biography
Comment: I know a number of people that do not like to read biographies. Whether or not you do read biographies, I have to say that this is the best I have read in the last couple of years. It reads like a novel, nuanced, well-paced and, yes, exciting. It is wonderful to learn how Darwin discovered the Fact of Evolution. Don't miss this one. I wish I could find the first print edition at a decent price. Both volumes are treasures.
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Title: Charles Darwin: The Power of Place by Janet Browne ISBN: 0691114390 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882 by Charles Darwin, Nora Barlow ISBN: 0393310698 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life by Peter Raby ISBN: 0691102406 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace : A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History by Michael Shermer ISBN: 0195148304 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Isaac Newton by James Gleick ISBN: 0375422331 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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