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octavia_cade's review
4.0
Loren Eiseley is my favourite science writer, and as I worked my way through this book I was initially a little disappointed. I read him for his images and language, and yet half the book isn't by him at all! But as I read, my expectations began to readjust.
Eiseley takes a detailed look here at the influence of the zoologist Edward Blyth on Darwin's theory of evolution. I'd never even heard of Blyth, but the evidence is convincing: Darwin had heard of him, and used his work as a (pretty much unacknowledged) stepping stone in the development of his own. A large section of this book is therefore given over to reprinting three of Blyth's papers (also his eventual obituary by a contemporary). These were interesting reads, even if they don't reach Eiseley's level of science writing - but what does? And there was plenty of Eiseley to content me, especially in his concluding essays on the place of man in evolutionary thought.
Informative, well-researched, and absolutely worth the read.
Eiseley takes a detailed look here at the influence of the zoologist Edward Blyth on Darwin's theory of evolution. I'd never even heard of Blyth, but the evidence is convincing: Darwin had heard of him, and used his work as a (pretty much unacknowledged) stepping stone in the development of his own. A large section of this book is therefore given over to reprinting three of Blyth's papers (also his eventual obituary by a contemporary). These were interesting reads, even if they don't reach Eiseley's level of science writing - but what does? And there was plenty of Eiseley to content me, especially in his concluding essays on the place of man in evolutionary thought.
Informative, well-researched, and absolutely worth the read.
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