Darwin's ghosts: the secret history of evolution

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ISBN:
9781400069378
9780679604136
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Grouped Work ID8e45a90b-b1a3-6e20-16ee-a08fb2963e73
Grouping Titledarwins ghosts the secret history of evolution
Grouping Authorrebecca stott
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2024-03-27 03:08:25AM
Last Indexed2024-03-27 03:13:50AM

Solr Fields

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0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
author
Stott, Rebecca
author_display
Stott, Rebecca
collection_catalog
Adult Non-Fiction
detailed_location_catalog
Duraleigh Road - Adult Non-Fiction
display_description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
“[An] extraordinarily wide-ranging and engaging book [about] the men who shaped the work of Charles Darwin . . . a book that enriches our understanding of how the struggle to think new thoughts is shared across time and space and people.”—The Sunday Telegraph (London)
Christmas, 1859. Just one month after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin received an unsettling letter. He had expected criticism; in fact, letters were arriving daily, most expressing outrage and accusations of heresy. But this letter was different. It accused him of failing to acknowledge his predecessors, of taking credit for a theory that had already been discovered by others. Darwin realized that he had made an error in omitting from Origin of Species any mention of his intellectual forebears. Yet when he tried to trace all of the natural philosophers who had laid the groundwork for his theory, he found that history had already forgotten many of them.
 
Darwin’s Ghosts tells the story of the collective discovery of evolution, from Aristotle, walking the shores of Lesbos with his pupils, to Al-Jahiz, an Arab writer in the first century, from Leonardo da Vinci, searching for fossils in the mine shafts of the Tuscan hills, to Denis Diderot in Paris, exploring the origins of species while under the surveillance of the secret police, and the brilliant naturalists of the Jardin de Plantes, finding evidence for evolutionary change in the natural history collections stolen during the Napoleonic wars. Evolution was not discovered single-handedly, Rebecca Stott argues, contrary to what has become standard lore, but is an idea that emerged over many centuries, advanced by daring individuals across the globe who had the imagination to speculate on nature’s extraordinary ways, and who had the courage to articulate such speculations at a time when to do so was often considered heresy.
With each chapter focusing on an early evolutionary thinker, Darwin’s Ghosts is a fascinating account of a diverse group of individuals who, despite the very real dangers of challenging a system in which everything was presumed to have been created perfectly by God, felt compelled to understand where we came from. Ultimately, Stott demonstrates, ideas—including evolution itself—evolve just as animals and plants do, by intermingling, toppling weaker notions, and developing over stretches of time. Darwin’s Ghosts presents a groundbreaking new theory of an idea that has changed our very understanding of who we are.
Praise for Darwin’s Ghosts
“Absorbing . . . Stott captures the breathless excitement of an investigation on the cusp of the unknown. . . . A lively, original book.”The New York Times Book Review
“Stott’s research is broad and unerring; her book is wonderful. . . . An exhilarating romp through 2,000 years of fascinating scientific history.”Nature
“Stott brings Darwin himself to life. . . . [She] writes with a novelist’s flair. . . . Darwin and the ‘ghosts’ so richly described in Ms. Stott’s enjoyable book are the descendants of Aristotle and Bacon and the ancestors of today’s scientists.”The Wall Street Journal
“Riveting . . . Stott has done a wonderful job in showing just how many extraordinary people had speculated on where we came from before the great theorist dispelled all doubts.”The Guardian (U.K.)
format_catalog
Book
eBook
format_category_catalog
Books
eBook
id
8e45a90b-b1a3-6e20-16ee-a08fb2963e73
isbn
9780679604136
9781400069378
last_indexed
2024-03-27T07:13:50.226Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
local_callnumber_catalog
576.82 STOTT
owning_library_catalog
Wake County Public Libraries
owning_location_catalog
Duraleigh Road Community
primary_isbn
9781400069378
publishDate
2012
publisher
Random House Publishing Group
Spiegel & Grau
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Darwin, Charles, -- 1809-1882 -- Sources
Darwin, Charles, -- 1809-1882. -- On the origin of species
Evolution (Biology) -- History
Naturalists -- Biography
Scientists -- Biography
title_display
Darwin's ghosts : the secret history of evolution
title_full
Darwin's Ghosts The Secret History of Evolution
Darwin's ghosts : the secret history of evolution / Rebecca Stott
title_short
Darwin's ghosts
title_sub
the secret history of evolution
topic_facet
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology)
History
Naturalists
Nonfiction
Science
Scientists
Sociology

Solr Details Tables

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ils:667625BookBooksFirst U.S. editionEnglishSpiegel & Grau2012xviii, 396 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

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