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Charles Darwin

Victorian Mythmaker

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Charles Darwin

By: A. N. Wilson
Narrated by: Richard Burnip
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About this listen

A radical reappraisal of Charles Darwin from the best-selling author of Victoria: A Life

Charles Darwin: the man who discovered evolution? The man who killed off God? Or a flawed man of his age, part genius, part ruthless careerist who would not acknowledge his debts to other thinkers?

In this bold new life - the first single volume biography in 25 years - A. N. Wilson, the acclaimed author of The Victorians and God's Funeral, goes in search of the celebrated but contradictory figure Charles Darwin.

Darwin was described by his friend and champion, Thomas Huxley, as a 'symbol'. But what did he symbolize? In Wilson's portrait, both sympathetic and critical, Darwin was two men. On the one hand, he was a naturalist of genius, a patient and precise collector and curator who greatly expanded the possibilities of taxonomy and geology. On the other hand, Darwin, a seemingly diffident man who appeared gentle and even lazy, hid a burning ambition to be a universal genius. He longed to have a theory which explained everything.

But was Darwin's 1859 master work, On the Origin of Species, really what it seemed, a work about natural history? Or was it in fact a consolation myth for the Victorian middle classes, reassuring them that the selfishness and indifference to the poor were part of nature's grand plan?

Charles Darwin: Victorian Mythmaker is a radical reappraisal of one of the great Victorians, a book which isn't afraid to challenge the Darwinian orthodoxy while bringing us closer to the man, his revolutionary idea and the wider Victorian age.

©2017 A. N. Wilson (P)2017 John Murray Press Science & Technology

Critic Reviews

"Hugely enjoyable." (Spectator)
"A lucid, elegantly written and thought-provoking social and intellectual history." (Evening Standard)
"As a historian trying to put Darwin in the context of his time, there is surely no better biographer than Wilson." (The Times)

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Comprehensive and readable.

I'm aware of the reputation this book garnered when it was first released.

what surprised me most was how relatively uncontroversial the book was in its conclusions.

An extremely detailed semi biographical work on one of the most famous figures in the history of science. The book makes arguments for which few in the evolutionary biology community would disagree... that Darwin was not the 'discoverer' of the theory of evolution, that a lot of what Darwin said has been proven wrong in hindsight (like almost all good science), and perhaps most controversially that natural selection and evolution seem at a loss to explain certain phenomena.

The audiobook is eminently engaging, and paints a vivid picture of Victorian society and the world of Charles Darwin. A very worthwhile read for any fan of historical biographies, or students of science.

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Need several science degrees even to follow this

I have to hand it to Mr Wilson; he either knows a huge amount about science in all its fields of endeavour and discovery, or he thinks he does. If the reader wants more, there's theology and philosphy. The book is mostly a discussion of science interspersed with facts about Darwin the man and his life. I have since read that this book was controversial and some of Wilson's conclusions severely criticised by experts in their various fields, something I wish I had known before I set out on the tedious exercise of trying to fathom what it's all about. I suggest average readers give it a miss. Richard Burnip is an excellent narrator and deserves high praise for getting through the entire book.

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Snide, dismissive and anti science

50 minutes in, I decided not to waste any more time. I wish I had read a review before downloading

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