Book description
In 1809, when Darwin was born, much of the world was an unexplored
wilderness. Our knowledge of the past was nonexistent, and our picture
of our species' history little more than a set of fantastic myths and
fairytales. But a new era was dawning. Five decades later, On the Origin
of the Species was able to draw on the pioneering work of explorers and
naturalists to produce a theory that revolutionized our conception of
our world. And the revolution didn't stop with the publication of
Darwin's masterwork. 150 years later, his dangerous idea' is still
headline news, denied by many, capable of enraging and dividing, even as
biologists decipher the 3-billion-year history of life as written in our
very DNA. This book tells the stories of the most dramatic adventures
and important discoveries in two centuries of natural history - from
Alexander von Humboldt's epic journeys in South America to the hi-tech
genome-reading projects making headlines today - and how they gave birth
to and have nourished the evolution revolution. In 1809, when Darwin
was born, much of the world was an unexplored wilderness. Our knowledge
of the past was nonexistent, and our picture of our species' history
little more than a set of fantastic myths and fairytales. But a new era
was dawning. Five decades later, On the Origin of the Species was able
to draw on the pioneering work of explorers and naturalists to produce a
theory that revolutionized our conception of our world. And the
revolution didn't stop with the publication of Darwin's masterwork. 150
years later, his dangerous idea' is still headline news, denied by
many, capable of enraging and dividing, even as biologists decipher the
3-billion-year history of life as written in our very DNA. This book
tells the stories of the most dramatic adventures and important
discoveries in two centuries of natural history - from Alexander von
Humboldt's epic journeys in South America to the hi-tech genome-reading
projects making headlines today - and how they gave birth to and have
nourished the evolution revolution.
