Book Name : The Life And Death Of Charles Darwin
Author : L.R. Croft
What is it about : By piecing together the evidence gleamed from Charles Darwin's own words, personal letters as well as comments from collaborators, relatives, friends, critics, clerics, the book presented Darwin The Man. The Book also gave tentative answers to Darwin's mysterious illness, the probable reasons behind the years' delay on publication of his mind-altering masterpiece - The Origin Of Species; as well as the question of : did or did he not, on his deathbed, recant his theory of evolution by natural selection and his eventual conversion to Christianity ?
Some thoughts after having read the book : Having read Darwin's many great books and stories, this book gave me pause for thoughts. My own image of the Great Man before reading this book, had been a "Hall-Of-Fame" hero of the scientific world. This book however, made me think of Darwin as a devious, wavering, publicity-seeking self-server, who inadvertently fanned the flames of racism, who despicably included other's data in his research and never had the magnanimity to give credits to those with the original ideas and experimental data. As to Darwin's final conversion to religion, I surmise that this act was another of his "let's be on the safe side" tactic. Great work he did, not sure about the man himself.
Would I recommend this book to you : Yes. It was a highly enjoyable read and exciting to follow the Author's track of thoughts in analysing the materials available and finally arriving to a clearer picture of the (not so) Great Man. The Book read a little like a detective story where the P.I. investigated a dubious character with the assistance of a F.B.I. psychological profiling specialist.
Author : L.R. Croft
What is it about : By piecing together the evidence gleamed from Charles Darwin's own words, personal letters as well as comments from collaborators, relatives, friends, critics, clerics, the book presented Darwin The Man. The Book also gave tentative answers to Darwin's mysterious illness, the probable reasons behind the years' delay on publication of his mind-altering masterpiece - The Origin Of Species; as well as the question of : did or did he not, on his deathbed, recant his theory of evolution by natural selection and his eventual conversion to Christianity ?
Some thoughts after having read the book : Having read Darwin's many great books and stories, this book gave me pause for thoughts. My own image of the Great Man before reading this book, had been a "Hall-Of-Fame" hero of the scientific world. This book however, made me think of Darwin as a devious, wavering, publicity-seeking self-server, who inadvertently fanned the flames of racism, who despicably included other's data in his research and never had the magnanimity to give credits to those with the original ideas and experimental data. As to Darwin's final conversion to religion, I surmise that this act was another of his "let's be on the safe side" tactic. Great work he did, not sure about the man himself.
Would I recommend this book to you : Yes. It was a highly enjoyable read and exciting to follow the Author's track of thoughts in analysing the materials available and finally arriving to a clearer picture of the (not so) Great Man. The Book read a little like a detective story where the P.I. investigated a dubious character with the assistance of a F.B.I. psychological profiling specialist.
0 comments:
Post a Comment