Unforgettable . . . The definitive account of the Lusitania.”— Philadelphia Inquirer, on Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy Preston is sympathetic to Darwin's long delay in publishing his theory, until Wallace was nipping at his heels. Compare her treatment of this topic to Paul Johnson's, still my gold standard for a short Darwin bio: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... One pitch-dark night Darwin recorded a strange sight: “The sea from its extreme luminousness presented a wonderful … appearance; every part of the water, which by day is seen as foam, glowed with a pale light. The vessel drove before her bows two billows of liquid phosphorus, and in her wake was a milky train.—As far as the eye reached, the crest of every wave was bright, and from the reflected light the sky just above the horizon was not so utterly dark as the rest of the Heavens …” The sight reminded him of Milton’s descriptions “of the regions of Chaos and Anarchy” from his favorite book, Paradise Lost. While much has been written about Darwin's revolutionary scientific achievements on this journey, historian Preston sheds light on the voyage itself, its captain and crew, and the Native populations they encountered."-- Booklist (starred review) And random digressions into which European first sighted which piece of land, the horror they brought with them, then the next guy, the evil of enslaving people either figuratively by requiring 12 hours of hard labor and then 6 hours of church or literally, and then what happened next, and none of it seems to be important to the story of the Beagle. Or Darwin’s evolution. A very British lens also, it could have used more sensitivity to the people of the world that will read this.

How a young man, fussed over by adoring sisters in a wealthy middle-class Shrewsbury home, coped during the voyage intrigued me. In his diary Darwin admits frankly that before the Beagle sailed he fretted over whether he could live in the ship’s cramped crowded conditions – the Beagle was a mere ninety feet long. Yet the diary also reveals how curiosity and excitement overcame his misgivings. The voyage marked an evolution in Darwin himself. The more facts he gathered—and he was, throughout his life, an inveterate list maker—the more ideas came into his head. Many of these would have seemed heretical to the embryo clergyman he had been when he sailed, not doubting the literal truth of the Biblical picture of Creation. For most of the voyage Darwin thought of himself as primarily a geologist. However, in its latter stages he turned increasingly to biology and zoology. As the Beagle finally headed for home, he was already making notes on how species changed though it would be many years before he felt confident enough to reveal his ideas about evolution publicly and face the storm of hostility he knew they would provoke. Integral to his thinking was the interrelationship between living organisms and their environment, making him a pioneer of what we today call ecology. A gripping and excellent book . . . [Preston’s] extensive archival research fills in the historical chronology with well-selected quotations from personal accounts of participants at every level of civilian and military life.” — Washington Post, on A Higher Form of KillingDarwin was only 22 when he boarded the HMS Beagle in 1830 under the command of Robert FitzRoy as a 'gentleman naturalist, ' unaware his name would one day grace an award honouring humans who remove themselves from the gene pool through misadventure. Drawing on the naturalist's diaries, Preston's biography reveals a man who, in his chauvinism and blind patriotism, was typical of his time--but in his liberal- and abolition-mindedness, atypical as well."-- Globe and Mail Like many of his contemporaries, Darwin was cheerfully and unashamedly chauvinistic, nationalistic, and sexist, as the diary he kept aboard the Beagle as well as his subsequent writings reveal. However, though far from radical, his political views were liberal for the time and deep-seated. He opposed slavery, and during the voyage his abhorrence was reinforced by seeing slave-owning societies at first hand. While he believed that different peoples—such as the indigenous Aboriginal peoples of Australia and the Fuegians subsisting near-naked in twig wigwams in chill Tierra del Fuego—might be at differing stages of “civilization,” he never wavered from the belief that all humankind belongs to a single species.

One reviewer described this as an irresistible scientific biography and adventure story with a happy ending. Agreed. The argument is made that of all scientists across known time, from Aristotle to Galileo, Newton to Einstein, that Darwin could arguably be the most significant. This book chronicles the voyage of the Beagle and what it lead to.Fascinating . . . A beautifully told coming-of-age story focused on Darwin’s psychological transmutation from a diffident specimen collector expecting to become a country parson to a novice scientist climbing the career ladder in London’s private and prestigious clubs and societies . . . Offer[s] new and exciting ideas that will likely beat out the competition.”— Robert M. Thorson, Wall Street Journal

Full Book Name: The Evolution of Charles Darwin: The Epic Voyage of the Beagle That Forever Changed Our View of Life on Earth In both cases Dampier was prefiguring Darwin’s thinking. Curious about what Darwin knew of Dampier’s work, I began reading Darwin’s writings to find them peppered with references to Dampier. I also discovered Dampier’s books were on the cramped shelves of the Beagle’s library. Darwin is the scientific giant of the 19th century, and his influence (for good and ill) is still strong. So I'm looking forward to Preston's take! When twenty-two-year-old aspiring geologist Charles Darwin boarded 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.Such a hobby needed money and—as he would into adulthood—Charles used his sisters as a conduit to obtain it from their formidable father, of whom he seems to have been a little afraid. Darwin recalled his father was easily angered and somewhat unjust to him in his youth. Dr. Darwin was physically imposing— the largest man I ever saw—broad-shouldered, six foot two, and weighing well over twenty-four stone (296 pounds). Though by other accounts inclined to be distant and given to intimidating brooding silences, he seems to have had his son’s interests at heart and the transmitted requests for money usually succeeded. When twenty-two-year-old aspiring geologist Charles Darwin boarded 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 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, evolutionary theories about the origin of species and natural selection.