-
The Monkey's Voyage
- How Improbable Journeys Shaped the History of Life
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
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Publisher's summary
How did species wind up where they are today? Scientists have long conjectured that plants and animals dispersed throughout the world by drifting on large landmasses as they broke up, but in The Monkey’s Voyage, biologist Alan de Queiroz offers a radical new theory that displaces this passive view.
He describes how species as diverse as monkeys, baobab trees, and burrowing lizards made incredible long-distance ocean crossings: pregnant animals and wind-blown plants rode rafts and icebergs and even stowed away on the legs of sea-going birds to create the map of life we see today. In the tradition of John McPhee's Basin and Range and David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo, The Monkey’s Voyage is a beautifully told narrative of a profound investigation into the importance of contingency in history and the nature of scientific discovery.
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Challenging textbook more than an enjoyable listen
- By Eric on 01-15-12
By: Richard Dawkins
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The Galápagos
- A Natural History
- By: Henry Nicholls
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The Galapagos were once known to the sailors and pirates who encountered them as Las Encantadas: the enchanted islands, home to exotic creatures and dramatic volcanic scenery. In The Galapagos, science writer Henry Nicholls offers a lively natural and human history of the archipelago, charting its evolution from deserted wilderness to scientific resource (made famous by Charles Darwin) and global ecotourism hot spot.
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Thought-Provoking
- By Jean on 10-23-18
By: Henry Nicholls
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Remarkable Creatures
- Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species
- By: Sean B. Carroll
- Narrated by: Jim Bond
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Just 150 years ago, most of our world was an unexplored wilderness. Our sense of its age was vastly off the mark. And what we believed to be the history of our own species consisted of fantastic myths and fairy tales; fossils, known for millennia, were seen as the bones of dragons and other imagined creatures. How did we learn so much so quickly? Remarkable Creatures celebrates the pioneers who replaced our fancies with the even more remarkable real story of how our world evolved.
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A Remarkable Journey
- By Michael Dowd on 03-22-09
By: Sean B. Carroll
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When Humans Nearly Vanished
- The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano
- By: Donald R. Prothero
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Some 73,000 years ago, the Mount Toba supervolcano in toda's Indonesia erupted, releasing the energy of a million tons of explosives. So much ash and debris was injected into the stratosphere that it partially blocked the sun's radiation and caused global temperatures to drop for a decade. In this book, Donald R. Prothero presents the controversial argument that the Toba catastrophe nearly wiped out the human race, leaving only about a thousand to ten thousand breeding pairs of humans worldwide.
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A very special book
- By Scott Fitzsimmons on 02-02-19
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First Peoples in a New World
- Colonizing Ice Age America
- By: David J. Meltzer
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 11 hrs
- Abridged
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More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology.
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Last Gasp of American Anthropological Orthodoxy
- By Thomas66 on 01-05-17
By: David J. Meltzer
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When Life Nearly Died
- The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time
- By: Michael J. Benton
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that killed half of all species then living. It is far less widely understood that a much greater catastrophe took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago: at least 90 percent of life on earth was destroyed. When Life Nearly Died documents not only what happened during this gigantic mass extinction, but also the recent renewal of the idea of catastrophism.
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Obscurity to Enlightenment - A Mystery Revealed
- By Dipam on 03-18-21
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Why Evolution Is True
- By: Jerry A. Coyne
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Why evolution is more than just a theory: it is a fact. In all the current highly publicized debates about creationism and its descendant "intelligent design", there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned: the evidence, the empirical truth of evolution by natural selection.
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As great as everyone says it is
- By Joseph on 12-01-10
By: Jerry A. Coyne
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Superlative
- The Biology of Extremes
- By: Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms. For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.
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Fascinating survey of amazing biology
- By Nerd's-eye view on 12-06-19
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science. Although he doesn't know anything about the subject (at first), he is eager to learn, and takes information that he gets from the world's leading experts and explains it to us in a way that makes it exciting and relevant.
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The Only Book I reread imediatley after reading
- By Andrew on 11-09-09
By: Bill Bryson
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America Before
- The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization
- By: Graham Hancock
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Stunning new archaeological discoveries in North America together with new genetic evidence have launched a revolution in our understanding of the remote past of our species and of the origins of civilization. Graham Hancock, the internationally best-selling author has been overwhelmingly vindicated by recent discoveries. America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization is a mind-dilating exploration of the mystery of ancient civilizations, amazing archaeological discoveries, and profound implications for how we lead our lives today.
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Fun to Think About
- By Amazon Customer on 04-26-19
By: Graham Hancock
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The Most Perfect Thing
- By: Tim Birkhead
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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How are eggs of different shapes made, and why are they the shapes they are? When does the shell of an egg harden? Why do some eggs contain two yolks? How are the colours and patterns of eggshells created, and why do they vary? And which end of an egg is laid first - the blunt end or the pointy end?
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Great book about eggs!!
- By Timothy on 03-24-21
By: Tim Birkhead
What listeners say about The Monkey's Voyage
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Eric Colson
- 01-05-15
It all comes together
Great story of how science from many disciplines comes together to solve the puzzle of evolution. Best book on the subjects since "the greatest show on earth".
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- M.E.S
- 03-05-14
Fascinating, if you can handle the detail
This is an exhaustive study of biological history and evolution, as it relates to continental drift, cladistics and other off-shoots and counterpoints to Darwin's theory. I had never heard of the field of biogeography until I listened to this book and now I feel very comfortable with the subject. The author begins with Darwin and then looks at each successive theory in turn, ultimately disproving many or tempering their strict stances with alternative possibilities. De Queiroz builds his case brick by scientific brick, until he returns to Darwin, who first suggested that many, if not most, of the breaks and bizarre pan-continental connections in the biological narrative could be attributed to seemingly impossible journeys across oceans by species. Darwin did several experiments but didn't live long enough to prove his suppositions. De Queiroz, however, with the benefit of DNA testing, cites numerous examples of plants and animals that could not have reached certain shores any other way except by ocean travel.
I found this book illuminating and entertaining. I've read Darwin, but I am not a scientist, so some of the theoretical explanations went a bit too deep for me. But de Queiroz works hard to engage the non-scientist and his enthusiasm for his subject is hard to resist. He brings to life many interesting historical characters, such as the gentleman-explorer who influenced Darwin and the passionate, if wrong-headed, Leon Croizat, who thought Darwin "congenitally not a thinker."
The reader does a great job with material which, while very well written, can be dense in its exhaustive detail.
I bought this book on a whim and I'm very glad I did. I learned a lot.
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5 people found this helpful
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- M. V. Smith
- 08-07-15
Wonderful introduction to biogeography
If you could sum up The Monkey's Voyage in three words, what would they be?
Historical scientific adventure.
What other book might you compare The Monkey's Voyage to and why?
Ghosts of Gondwana, another book on biogeography. Ghosts of Gondwana focuses on New Zealand, and is very well written, but not so fun to read or engaging. The Monkey's Voyage doesn't go into such great and specific depth, instead giving an overview and history of the science of biogeography.
Which character – as performed by Jonathan Todd Ross – was your favorite?
Dr. Kary Mullis. I never realised he was such a laugh.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes! I couldn't, but I would have. But also it was good to savour it and spread it over several sessions.
Any additional comments?
Jonathan Todd Ross is American, but his accent is very easy on the ears, with excellent intonation. He slips up occasionally - eg. the "Olgigocene" drowning - but the slip ups are very infrequent considering his having to pronounce some very technical words. For some reason, the slip ups made listening even more enjoyable - they gave it character. This is an incredibly well-written book and I think anyone would find it enjoyable. Biogeography is the science of why things are where they are, and it has a fascinating history that has been told in such dull ways in the past. This book is so refreshing and enjoyable that I couldn't recommend it enough and I was sad when it finished.
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- Sandy
- 11-16-23
Never gets to the monkeys
Painful to listen to. I’m the target demographic for this book, but it is eye-gougingly painful to listen to. He never gets to the interesting part. He never goes into details about the monkey’s journey to the Americas. You FINALLY get to the chapter about moneys (at the end of the book) and, instead, he tells you about his family’s vacation and a personal story about swimming. Sigh. Don’t expect to learn anything in this book. He never talks about spiders ballooning across the ocean. He doesn’t cover anything interesting. It’s a long and boring history of early scientists. He could have told the stories of the scientists in an interesting way. He doesn’t.
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