Evolution's Captain: The Dark Fate of the Man Who Sailed Charles Darwin Around the World - Hardcover

Nichols, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006008877X ISBN 13: 9780060088774

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

Synopsis

Evolution's Captain: The Dark Fate of the Man Who Sailed Charles Darwin Around the World
336 pp. "Evolution's Captain is the story of a visionary but now forgotten English naval officer but for whom the "Darwinian Revolution" would never have occurred. When Captain Robert FitzRoy, the twenty-six-year-old captain of the H.M.S. Beagle, set out for Tierra del Fuego in the fall of 1831, he invited a young naturalist to accompany him. That twenty-two-year-old gentleman was Charles Darwin, and perhaps no single voyage in history had a greater impact on how we would come to understand the world -- in both religious and scientific terms.When the Beagle's first captain committed suicide while at sea in 1828, he was replaced by a young naval officer of a new mold. Robert FitzRoy was the most brilliant and scientific sea captain of his age. He used the Beagle, a survey vessel, as a laboratory for the new field of the natural sciences. But his plan to bring four "savages" home to England to civilize them as Christian gentlefolk backfired when scandal loomed over their sexual misbehavior at the Walthamstow Infants School. FitzRoy needed to get them out of England fast, and thus was born the second and most famous voyage of the Beagle.FitzRoy feared the loneliness of another long voyage -- with madness in his own family, he was haunted by the fate of the Beagle's previous captain -- so for company he took with him the young amateur naturalist Charles Darwin. Like FitzRoy, Darwin believed, at the beginning of the voyage, in the absolute word of the Bible and the story of man's creation. The two men spent five years circling the globe together, but by the end of their voyage they had reached startlingly different conclusions about the origins of the natural world.In naval terms, the voyage was a stunning scientific success. But FitzRoy, a fanatical Christian, was horrified by the heretical theories Darwin began to develop. As these began to influence the profound.

About this title

Review:

"A detailed . portrait of a man whose talents should have earned him a higher place in history." -- Kirkus Reviews

"A fascinating account." -- Edmonton Sun

A fascinating account. --Edmonton Sun

"Nichols delivers a dramatic, highly colored narrative about the head-on collision between two worldviews."--Washington Post

"A well-written and lively tale, filled with insightful analysis and telling details."--Seattle Times

"A powerful story played out against a beguiling landscape."--New York Times Book Review

"A fascinating account ... a finely researched, engaging book."--Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"A fascinating account."--Edmonton Sun

"A detailed ... portrait of a man whose talents should have earned him a higher place in history."--Kirkus Reviews

"[It's] hard not to share Nichols' fascination with how FitzRoy...inadvertantly set off a scientfic controversy."--Publishers Weekly

About the Author:

Peter Nichols taught creative writing at NYU in Paris and Georgetown University, and presently teaches at Bowdoin College.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 006008877X
• ISBN 13: 9780060088774
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352