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apatrick's review against another edition
4.0
Lovely before-bed reading. Darwin was a very accessible writer. Like history? You'll probably like this. Like natural sciences? You'll probably like this. Like traveling? You'll probably like this. Something for everyone -- anthropology, geology, even sailing. It's Darwin's notes on his travels all over the world.
I feel like with the Kindle edition I might have been missing some illustrations, but until the semester is over, I'm trying to avoid libraries, so I am not sure. I really like that I could pick up this book any time and not feel lost, since it's not a narrative.
I feel like with the Kindle edition I might have been missing some illustrations, but until the semester is over, I'm trying to avoid libraries, so I am not sure. I really like that I could pick up this book any time and not feel lost, since it's not a narrative.
christineunabridged's review against another edition
4.0
It will forever be in my mind how much Charles Darwin hated the capybara. This book is surprisingly hilarious in a very unintentional way. I am certain Darwin is mortified with how irreverent I took his scientific discoveries, but it couldn't have been avoided. Also, he talks of listening to the call chupacabra in the nighttime at one point.
bookdragon_sansan's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
jeffreywbush's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Really interesting. He had so much expertise in so many fields: geology, biology, botany sociology… it reads like an adventure novel.
duffypratt's review against another edition
2.0
For a long time (too long), it looked like it was going to take me longer to read this book than it took the Beagle to sail around the world. Darwin was a brilliant man, and a fine writer. But the genre of naturalistic travel writings is just not for me. In a similar vein, I've also read some of Thoreau's travel writings, a less brilliant man but a better writer, and came away with the same feeling.
In brief sections, I would find the book brilliant. But those brief sections would not be enough to drive me forward. So instead, I had to plunge through longer pieces at a time, and the brilliance somehow turns to a dull slog. After not too long, I simply lose interest in how many varieties of insect he found on that other side of some obscure mountain in South America. Yeah, and I know that's my failing.
In college, this book was required for several Freshman english classes, but thankfully not for mine. If I had been forced to read this in a couple of weeks or less, I might simply have dropped out.
I did find it interesting to see how thoroughly Darwin, who was otherwise extremely open minded, clung to the notion of British nobility and how it contrasted with savagery. I can almost see how the Social Darwinists would come to pervert his theories, because his notions about the superiority of civilization, and of British civilization in particular, seem to point in that direction (even if they are strictly speaking irrelevant).
The other thing that impressed me in this book was his acceptance that extinction is just part of the way of things. He blithely mentions the inevitable extinction of species at several points in the book. What a sharp contrast to the progressive environmentalists who seem to want to put an end to all extinctions, and think that it is somehow our duty.
I wish I had liked this book more. There's not a whole lot that I found wrong with it, given what it is and what it was trying to do. On that score, it is exceptionally good. The only problem is, I guess, that I just don't like that sort of book, and I refuse to learn my lesson and stop reading them.
In brief sections, I would find the book brilliant. But those brief sections would not be enough to drive me forward. So instead, I had to plunge through longer pieces at a time, and the brilliance somehow turns to a dull slog. After not too long, I simply lose interest in how many varieties of insect he found on that other side of some obscure mountain in South America. Yeah, and I know that's my failing.
In college, this book was required for several Freshman english classes, but thankfully not for mine. If I had been forced to read this in a couple of weeks or less, I might simply have dropped out.
I did find it interesting to see how thoroughly Darwin, who was otherwise extremely open minded, clung to the notion of British nobility and how it contrasted with savagery. I can almost see how the Social Darwinists would come to pervert his theories, because his notions about the superiority of civilization, and of British civilization in particular, seem to point in that direction (even if they are strictly speaking irrelevant).
The other thing that impressed me in this book was his acceptance that extinction is just part of the way of things. He blithely mentions the inevitable extinction of species at several points in the book. What a sharp contrast to the progressive environmentalists who seem to want to put an end to all extinctions, and think that it is somehow our duty.
I wish I had liked this book more. There's not a whole lot that I found wrong with it, given what it is and what it was trying to do. On that score, it is exceptionally good. The only problem is, I guess, that I just don't like that sort of book, and I refuse to learn my lesson and stop reading them.
the_reading_wren's review against another edition
I’ve been reading this on and off for several years now and just found it a tough read in places. I skipped to the chapter about the Galápagos Islands because of how important that time was for Darwin’s thinking on evolution. It was fascinating to read his entries from that time as he was processing all the information he was collecting and thinking along the lines of the later theory of evolution by natural selection.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Racism, Colonisation, Animal death, Racial slurs, and Sexism