Product Description

Charles Darwin's travels around the world as an independent naturalist on HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836 impressed upon him a sense of the natural world's beauty, sublimity and otherness which language could barely capture. This journal takes the reader from the coasts and interiors of South America to the South Sea Islands. It displays Darwin's speculative mind at work, posing searching questions about the complex relations between the Earth's structure, animal forms, anthropology and the origins of life itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8559 in Books
• Published on: 1997-04-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Review
Many people who have planned to read The Voyage of the Beagle and been deterred by its length and scientific aspects will find the answer here in a carefully and skillfully abridged edition, cut to half the length, which gives the continuity of text, Darwin's own words, and the observations and episodes that make it memorable as a human document. Here is a classic, the record of an enquiring mind seeking scientific truth. Here is evident the growth of the man. An introductory biography places the importance of this trip in Darwin's life; introductory bits for each chapter provide an analysis of the voyage and its scientific meaning along with the actual text. This work is significant in view of additional material available in the last 35 years, much of it Darwin's own writings, but hitherto unpublished in book form. A bibliography provides not only original sources but additional material for study. --Kirkus Reviews

Customer Reviews

Essential reading for everyone!
This is an account of Darwin's voyage in HMS Beagle as a guest of Captain Fitz Roy. Fitz Roy wanted a gentleman naturalist to accompany him on an admiralty survey of the coast of South America in 1831. Darwin, using superb descriptive narrative, describes the flora, fauna, native inhabitants and perhaps most interestingly the geology of the countries he visits and draws far reaching conclusions later to be published in "The Origin of Species". He is completely enamoured of the incredible diversity of the natural world and conveys this in a thoroughly readable way, drawing conclusions based on sound scientific reasoning. If you never read another scientific book then read this one. If you do read this then I defy you not to read "The Origin of Species".

a book of a trip, a journal of people and places (and anumals and plants)
a book of a trip, a journal of people and places (and animals and plants)

This book is great.
I bought this book because I remembered the old TV series of the eighties. I expected a book with the aventures of the journey, but it is much more. It is more than the obervations of zoology and geology, it is mainly about the people, about the cultures that Darwin finds in South America and how he, as a modern European perceived the new independent South-American and native indians, their culture, their customs. With great objectivity, more than what would have today an ordinary tourist, Darwin depicts the way people live, the political and social issues, their superstitions, their food, their missery. And little by little Darwin gives his personal thoughts on everything from social to science issues.

Darwin's writing is clear and modern, full of wisdom and very personal. This edition of the ModernLibrary is very nice, the text has a decent size, the paper is fine and the cover too. Enjoy.

You can't tell me he wasn't having fun
Remember this says "Journal" and that is what it is. It is his first parson adventures on and off the Beagle. He even includes stories about the people on the ship, the ship's life, and maintenance. He is always going ashore and venturing beyond the ship charter to go where no Englishman has gone before. He makes friends with tyrants and the down trodden. Once, to get an animal to come to him, he lay on his back and waved his arms and legs in the air. Whatever you do, do not turn your back on him. He is always knocking something on the head and taking it back for study. It is fun trying to match the old names for places with the new.