The Voyage of the Beagle (Great Minds Series) (Paperback)

by Charles Darwin (Author) "AFTER having been twice driven back by heavy south-western gales, Her Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R..." (more)
Key Phrases: gigantic quadrupeds, intertropical regions, iooo feet, Tierra del Fuego, South America, Buenos Ayres (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Many people who have "planned" to read The Voyage of the Beagle and been deterred by its length and scientific aspects will find the answer here in a carefully and skillfully abridged edition, cut to half the length, which gives the continuity of text, Darwin's own words, and the observations and episodes that make it memorable as a human document. Here is a classic, the record of an enquiring mind seeking scientific truth. Here is evident the growth of the man. An introductory biography places the importance of this trip in Darwin's life; introductory bits for each chapter provide an analysis of the voyage and its scientific meaning along with the actual text. This work is significant in view of additional material available in the last 35 years, much of it Darwin's own writings, but hitherto unpublished in book form. A bibliography provides not only original sources but additional material for study. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
Inviting in its lavish detail, this is Darwin's fascinating account of his five-year journey aboard the Royal Navy ship HMS Beagle (1831-1836) as it surveyed the coasts of South America, New Zealand, Australia, and the now famous Galapagos Archipelago. One of the most important voyages of the 19th century, this is where Darwin made the observations that led to his theory of evolution by means of natural selection, which emerged two decades later. "The Voyage of the Beagle" has delighted and enlightened millions because of Darwin's loving and insightful observations of the plants, animals, people, and locations he explored. These journals provide striking examples of the great scientist's reasoning ability and intriguing glimpses into his thought processes. They are the precursor to "The Descent of Man" (1871, 1874), a controversial leap in evolutionary theory from nature to humanity.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 547 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (November 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573927732
• ISBN-13: 978-1573927734
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,427,048 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great classic of science., August 23, 1998

By	Greg B. Shoom (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Voyage of the Beagle: Complete and Unabridged (Paperback)

From 1831 to 1836 Charles Darwin, then a young man in his twenties, was the official naturalist on the Royal Navy ship HMS Beagle. The Beagle spent five years completing a survey of the coasts of South America and making a series of longitude measurements around the world. This proved to be one of the most important scientific voyages of the 19th century, for it was on this voyage that Darwin made the observations that lead, twenty years later, to his formulating the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. This book is Darwin's account of his observations on this voyage. Darwin was a master of detailed observation, and he describes the things he observed -- the plants, animals, geology, and people -- in loving detail. His accounts are always lively and full of interest. Darwin was also a master of inductive reasoning, and there are several superb examples of this in this book. Perhaps the finest is Darwin's induction of the cause of the formation of the coral atolls that dot the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean (his theory was proved correct in the 20th century). Indeed, much of the value of this book for the modern reader lies in the many examples it contains of scientific, inductive thought; a powerful method of reasoning that is as neglected today as it was in Darwin's time.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't get the Wordsworth Edition, April 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Voyage of the Beagle (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature) (Paperback)

This is an extremely interesting book; well worth reading. However I would not recommend getting the edition published by Wordsworth (ISBN 185364768). It was not proof-read very carefully, and contains a lot of typographical errors.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An incredible adventure and a most enjoyable read, May 28, 2008

By	Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: Voyage of the Beagle (National Geographic Adventure Classics) (Paperback)

One of the amazing things about the voyage of the Beagle is that Darwin survived it! On the voyage south along the eastern coast of South America and then later on the western coast he would frequently take to the land and meet the Beagle at its next port of call further south or north. He would travel the land hiring gauchos or other guides and horses and mules so that he could study the geology and the flora and fauna. The hardships and dangers he encountered and survived would in some ways put Indiana Jones to shame. In Patagonia amidst the constant gaucho and Indian wars, rife with wanton bloodshed and a kind of genocidal determinism, Darwin rode on horseback and slept on the ground and ate mostly animal flesh of all kinds, including mare's flesh. In Tierra del Fuego the cold and barren lands were enormously forbidding, the inhabitants savage and the dangers very real. One senses in the young Charles Darwin a determination to be the kind of naturalist who leaves no stone unturned, no ridge unclimbed and no species uncollected.

What most surprised me was how well and vibrantly he described the many people he met. Here he speaks of the governor of St. Fe: his "favourite occupation is hunting Indians: a short time since he slaughtered forty-eight, and sold the children at the rate of three or four pounds apiece" (from the entry of Oct 3 and 4, 1832). And here is his description of Queen Pomarre of Tahiti: "The queen is a large awkward woman, without any beauty, grace or dignity. She has only one royal attribute: a perfect immovability of expression under all circumstances" (entry of November 25, 1835). Darwin was quite taken with the Tahitians lauding their sobriety (thanks to the temperance movement of the missionaries) while at the same time bringing a flask of spirits on his travels there. He seemed unaware of any inconsistency.

I was also surprised by Darwin's vigor. I had thought that he was prone to being sickly, and indeed at times, he reports that he was confined to his quarters and that he suffered from seasickness and even homesickness; but when one considers all the miles he travelled on foot, on horseback, and all the mountain peaks he obtained, and the deserts he crossed, the many insects bites he endured, and the hard, cold and wet ground on which he often slept, one has to applaud his strength of body and character. Another surprise was the amount of time he devoted to geology and speculations about the how the land came to be the way he found it. When he spoke of how the land had risen and the mountains formed I had the sense of how thrilled he would have been to have had the modern understanding of plate tectonics.

At a couple of points in the narrative, Darwin speaks of how the most luxurious vegetation does not support the greatest number of animals, or the largest. He compares the plains of Africa and Patagonia with the Brazilian rainforest and speculates on why this should be. At no point does he use the term "grasslands," and so I think we can conclude that he didn't have the knowledge we have today about how fertile grasslands can be, nor did he realize that most of the nutrients in the rain forest are contained within the living plants and organisms above ground leaving the soil relatively poor compared to grassland soil. In the entry for September 15, 1832, he writes: "In grassy plains unoccupied by the larger ruminating quadrupeds, it seems necessary to remove the superfluous vegetation by fire, so as to render the new year's growth serviceable."

Another bit of modern knowledge that would have pleased him to know is that the marine iguanas of the Galapagos Islands cannot just jump into the very cold water that exists there but must warm themselves first, and even then can only stand the water for a limited period of time (an hour or two, I believe). Darwin kept tossing one of the lizards into the water only to watch it return inexplicably again and again to the land.

I was looking for hints that Darwin was already thinking about natural selection, but the text contains nothing that I could find that is directly specific although at one point he refers to the origin of species as that "mystery of mysteries."

The book was written (and obviously rewritten and polished many times over) after Darwin returned to England after comparing notes with other naturalists. The advantage of this approach is the scientific rigor with which he is able to describe and evaluate his experiences. As a professional scientist, Darwin wanted to get all the scientific names right and avoid errors. One would expect through this approach that some immediacy would be lost, but if anything I suspect his journal gained in vividness and was made all the more intriguing for the precision of expression. It is, after all these years, still a most engaging and readable account of a most remarkable adventure--one of the best I've ever read, and I am surprised that it took me so many years to get to it!

The Voyage of the Beagle is also a book that will stay in print for many decades if not centuries to come, partly because it is so well written, and partly because Darwin is Darwin, but also because he was so precise in his descriptions of the animals and the people and the lands that he visited. By reading this we and future generations can learn of the changes that have taken place.

In short I was thoroughly dazzled at Darwin's enormously wide range of knowledge. But I shouldn't have been. In just reading this journal, one can easily see that young Mr. Darwin was already a superb naturalist and a brilliant thinker and observer.