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Loading... Evolution's Captain: The Tragic Fate of Robert Fitzroy, the Man Who Sailed Charles Darwin Around the World (2003)by Peter Nichols
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. So glad that I finally pulled this book off of my shelf to read. It has given me valuable insight into the character, as well as the trials and tribulations, of Captain Robert FitzRoy who was responsible for taking Charles Darwin around the world on the H.M.S. Beagle. It's wonderful when a story helps to provide a better understanding and picture of a voyage of such historical significance. ( ) The author finds a new way to explore the Charles Darwin story that hasn't been done before: through an autobiography of Captain Fitzroy. This is a very good treatment of the troubled captain, removing the stereotypes that have surrounded him for so long, and fleshing out the man, who was a contributor in his own right to modern science. I originally bought this book because the subject matter seemed very interesting. The story of the captain behind Darwin is rarely told, however the author ruins the story by poor writing. Paragraphs about separate ideas are put together with little to no transition giving the book a jumpy, incomplete feeling. It made the book too difficult to read for me which was highly disappointing since the story seemed to have so much promise. no reviews | add a review
"When HMS Beagle's first captain committed suicide in the bleak waters of Tierra del Fuego in 1828, he was replaced by a young naval officer of a new mould. Robert FitzRoy was the most brilliant and scientific sea captain of his age. He used the Beagle, a survey vessel, as a laboratory for the new field of the natural sciences. But his plan to bring four 'savages' home to England to civilize them as Christian gentlefolk backfired when scandal loomed over their sexual misbehaviour at the Walthamstow Infants School. FitzRoy needed to get them out of England fast, and thus was born the second, and most famous voyage of the Beagle." "FitzRoy feared the loneliness of another long voyage - with madness in his own family, he was haunted by the fate of his predecessor - so for company he took with him a young amateur naturalist, Charles Darwin. Like FitzRoy, Darwin believed, at the beginning of the voyage, in the absolute word of the Bible. The two men spent five years circling the globe together, but by the end of their voyage, they had reached startlingly different conclusions about the origins of the natural world." "In naval terms, the voyage was a stunning scientific success. But FitzRoy, a passionate Christian, was horrified by Darwin's heretical theories. As these began to influence the profoundest levels of religious and scientific thinking in the nineteenth century, FitzRoy's knowledge that he had provided the young naturalist with the vehicle for his sacrilegious ideas propelled him down an irrevocable path to suicide."--BOOK JACKET. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)918.276044History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography of and travel in South America Argentina; PatagoniaLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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