A review by selket16
The Voyage of the Beagle: Charles Darwin's Journal of Researches by Charles Darwin

2.0

This was Darwin's journal from his 5 year voyage on the Beagle. It predates his famous theory on evolution, but is where it all started. This is a book that should come with a disclaimer. Although it is fascinating to read the work that started it all, one must take a moment to realize when it was written. It is painfully racist. I had to remind myself many times that this was in the early 1800s, but his references to natives as savages and these cultures being inferior to his own, and his nonchalance on these people getting shot down almost had me stopping this book several times, but I powered through it and, well, I'm not sure I really had to. I am not an evolutionary biologist with a love of the history of the field. I am an amateur who loves science, of which there is very little in this book that isn't found elsewhere in other books. If you really must read Darwin, read On the Origin of Species, the racism is much more subdued and if you want to learn more about evolution, read something more modern, it got really interesting once genes and DNA were discovered.

So my take away is that, yes, this book is historically significant and shouldn't be burned or destroyed or anything, but it's also not a book that needs to be read by any but the most interested in Darwin and evolution. I wouldn't recommend reading this book, but I wouldn't not recommend it either, I'd just give a warning on it.