Scan barcode
A review by benburns
The Voyage of the Beagle by Michael Neve, Charles Darwin, Janet Browne
5.0
Yes, it's 500 pages and you have to wade through a lot of dry geology. But the little moments make it worthwhile -- it's like reading a Jules Verne travel adventure, but real. Darwin combines his incredible observational talent and extremely broad, deep knowledge of 1830s science (even though he's only in his 20s) to describe all sorts of marvelous details from his 5-year trip around the southern hemisphere.
Some favorite aspects:
- Marveling at crazy finds, coincidences, and epic vistas -- earthquakes, volcanoes, calving glaciers, huge fossils, atolls, bioluminescence, and lots of bizarre phenomena you still didn't know existed, 200 years later. Red snow! Rainbow mountains with high-elevation fossil seashells!
- Sharp cultural observations that rotate between reverent, wry, racist, dull, touching, and progressive even for today. And sometimes even sassy (my favorite). Detailed enough to capture the whole daily life of, say, an 1830s Argentinian cowboy and his lasso. It makes you really feel the enormity of time and space - only a fraction of human history separates you and that cowboy, but so much has changed.
- Wild stories of first and early contact with aboriginal populations
- Reading along as he thinks through the earliest hints of natural selection, evolution and extinction, plate tectonics, germ theory, and more. He's alive at a time when you could discover some huge part of science, by yourself, through careful observation -- just like I wanted to do as a kid -- and you get to watch his gears turn. He doesn't quite have a eureka moment on any of these, but gets really close.
- Darwin just knowing so much more about how nature works than the people he meets do.
- Occasional poetic stretches where he gets worked up about, say, the eternal balance of power between the waves and coral, or the competing advantages of living among tropical evergreens vs. getting to see spring and fall leaves in England. Or how every young naturalist should take a traveling adventure.
- Unintentionally funny moments like a missionary lasting just one week with natives, or Darwin riding a tortoise ("I frequently got on their backs, and then giving a few raps on the hinder part of their shells, they would rise up and walk away; but I found it very difficult to keep my balance").
If you're thinking of reading this:
1. Pair with Google Maps! Following along on satellite maps and seeing the views he describes - and how things have changed since the 1830s - was so cool.
2. Consider just reading a selection of a few of the best chapters (ordered here by priority - chronological order doesn't matter). The whole thing is free online.
- Chapter 10, Tierra del Fuego
- Chapter 15, Passage of the Cordillera
- Chapter 17, Galapagos Archipelago
- Chapter 8, Banda Oriental and Patagonia
Some favorite aspects:
- Marveling at crazy finds, coincidences, and epic vistas -- earthquakes, volcanoes, calving glaciers, huge fossils, atolls, bioluminescence, and lots of bizarre phenomena you still didn't know existed, 200 years later. Red snow! Rainbow mountains with high-elevation fossil seashells!
- Sharp cultural observations that rotate between reverent, wry, racist, dull, touching, and progressive even for today. And sometimes even sassy (my favorite). Detailed enough to capture the whole daily life of, say, an 1830s Argentinian cowboy and his lasso. It makes you really feel the enormity of time and space - only a fraction of human history separates you and that cowboy, but so much has changed.
- Wild stories of first and early contact with aboriginal populations
- Reading along as he thinks through the earliest hints of natural selection, evolution and extinction, plate tectonics, germ theory, and more. He's alive at a time when you could discover some huge part of science, by yourself, through careful observation -- just like I wanted to do as a kid -- and you get to watch his gears turn. He doesn't quite have a eureka moment on any of these, but gets really close.
- Darwin just knowing so much more about how nature works than the people he meets do.
- Occasional poetic stretches where he gets worked up about, say, the eternal balance of power between the waves and coral, or the competing advantages of living among tropical evergreens vs. getting to see spring and fall leaves in England. Or how every young naturalist should take a traveling adventure.
- Unintentionally funny moments like a missionary lasting just one week with natives, or Darwin riding a tortoise ("I frequently got on their backs, and then giving a few raps on the hinder part of their shells, they would rise up and walk away; but I found it very difficult to keep my balance").
If you're thinking of reading this:
1. Pair with Google Maps! Following along on satellite maps and seeing the views he describes - and how things have changed since the 1830s - was so cool.
2. Consider just reading a selection of a few of the best chapters (ordered here by priority - chronological order doesn't matter). The whole thing is free online.
- Chapter 10, Tierra del Fuego
- Chapter 15, Passage of the Cordillera
- Chapter 17, Galapagos Archipelago
- Chapter 8, Banda Oriental and Patagonia