The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Darwin, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140432051 ISBN 13: 9780140432053

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1982

Synopsis

With his revolutionary work The Origin of Species Charles Darwin overthrew contemporary beliefs about Divine Providence and the beginnings of life on earth. Written for the general public of the 1850s, it is a rigorously documented but highly readable account of the scientific theory that now lies at the root of our present attitude to the universe. Challenging notions such as the fixity of species with the idea of natural selection, and setting forth the results of pioneering work on the ecology of animals and plants, it made a lasting contribution to philosophical and scientific thought.

About this title

Review:

It's hard to talk about The Origin of Species without making statements that seem overwrought and fulsome. But it's true: this is indeed one of the most important and influential books ever written, and it is one of the very few groundbreaking works of science that is truly readable.

To a certain extent it suffers from the Hamlet problem--it's full of clichés! Or what are now clichés, but which Darwin was the first to pen. Natural selection, variation, the struggle for existence, survival of the fittest: it's all in here.

Darwin's friend and "bulldog" T. H. Huxley said upon reading the Origin, "How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of that." Alfred Russel Wallace had thought of the same theory of evolution Darwin did, but it was Darwin who gathered the mass of supporting evidence--on domestic animals and plants, on variability, on sexual selection, on dispersal--that swept most scientists before it. It's hardly necessary to mention that the book is still controversial: Darwin's remark in his conclusion that "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history" is surely the pinnacle of British understatement. --Mary Ellen Curtin, Amazon.com

Review:

"Why does Darwin's theory matter now? Because it is the basis of modern biology and much medical research; it provides a tool with which to understand the natural world; it offers a deeper, if imperfect, understanding of our behaviour, about where we came from and where we might be going" (Observer)

"The single best idea anybody ever had" (Daniel Dennet, philosopher)

"The most important book ever written" (New Scientist)

"No other book has so transformed how we look at the natural world and mankind's origins" (Sunday Telegraph)

"There are few books that I read more than once but The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin is one" (David Attenborough)

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0140432051
• ISBN 13: 9780140432053
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480
• Editor: Burrow J.