The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution
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Narrated by:
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Grover Gardner
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By:
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David Quammen
About this listen
Drawing from Darwin's secret notebooks and personal letters, David Quammen has sketched a vivid life portrait of the man whose work remains controversial today.
©2006 David Quammen (P)2006 BBC Audiobooks AmericaListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Grover Gardner is a first-rate reader who seems genuinely to enjoy recounting the foibles of Darwin's life. An excellent general audience title." (Library Journal)
"Grover Gardner’s reading pulses with the excitement of Quammen’s quest. As the author sifts through Darwin’s developing insights and personality quirks...Gardner is perfectly alert to the author’s subtle irony and humor..." (Audiofile)
"It's easy to hear why PW named Grover Gardner Narrator of the Year in '05. He uses inflection, stress, rhythm and his rich vocal range to create an easy and often amusing conversational style." (Publishers Weekly)
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- 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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Great Scientists and Their Discoveries
- By: David Angus
- Narrated by: Benjamin Soames, Clare Corbett
- Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins
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Nine remarkable men produced inventions that changed the world. The printing press, the telephone, powered flight, recording and others have made the modern world what it is. But who were the men who had these ideas and made reality of them? As David Angus shows, they were very different - quiet, boisterous, confident, withdrawn - but all had a moment of vision allied to single-minded determination to battle through numerous prototypes and produced something that really worked. This is a fascinating account for younger listeners.
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Significant Figures
- The Lives and Work of Great Mathematicians
- By: Ian Stewart
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
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In Significant Figures, acclaimed mathematician Ian Stewart introduces the visionaries of mathematics throughout history. Delving into the lives of twenty-five great mathematicians, Stewart examines the roles they played in creating, inventing, and discovering the mathematics we use today. Through these short biographies, we get acquainted with the history of mathematics.
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Beware
- By Anton Kurtz on 12-08-18
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The Metaphysical Club
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Hardly a club in the conventional sense, the organization referred to in the title of this superb literary hybrid (part history, part biography, part philosophy) consisted of four members and probably existed for less than nine months.
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The Great American Experiment
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The Jesuit and the Skull
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In December 1929, in a cave near Peking, a group of anthropologists and archaeologists that included a young French Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin uncovered a prehuman skull. The find quickly became known around the world as Peking Man and was acclaimed as the missing link between erect hunting apes and our Cro-Magnon ancestors. It also became a provocative piece of evidence in the roiling debate over creationism versus evolution.
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More skull than Jesuit
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By: Amir D. Aczel
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Evolution
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Over the past 20 years, paleontologists have made tremendous fossil discoveries, including fossils that mark the growth of whales, manatees, and seals from land mammals and the origins of elephants, horses, and rhinos. Today there exists an amazing diversity of fossil humans, suggesting we walked upright long before we acquired large brains, and new evidence from molecules that enable scientists to decipher the tree of life as never before.
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NOT WORTH THE PRICE OF ADDMISSION
- By CRAIG on 12-25-14
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The Riddle of the Labyrinth
- The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code
- By: Margalit Fox
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
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In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece's Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe's earliest written records.
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Discovery and Translation of Linear B Script
- By Sires on 01-11-14
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Emerson
- The Mind on Fire
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Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.
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Finally!
- By Douglas on 08-15-14
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The Age of Wonder
- How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
- By: Richard Holmes
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
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When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution.
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Misleading title
- By Diane on 08-04-11
By: Richard Holmes
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What listeners say about The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Dremeljunkie
- 12-25-17
Short but Excellent!
Wonderful for such a short audiobook and brilliantly narrated. Filled with relevant personal information and evaluation of historical significance. Does not shy away from criticism for an appropriately revered but complex man.
Narration was excellently paced and engaging. I found the author to add scientific background, social and cultural significance, and humor in a perfect mix! Highly recommended
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- John Cashman
- 07-09-20
Good book
This is a good book that focuses on a specific part of Darwin's life. If you are looking for a complete biography, this isn't the book for you.But the synopsis describes the work well, and it succeeds admirably.
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- Tolva
- 02-10-22
think
loved it . a chance to get to know Mr. Darwin. now to see the genome discoveries.
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- B. Smith
- 04-12-16
worth the time
love or revile the ideas, they are worth revisiting. this expose of the man and his times is more than welcome and quite inspiring. thanks to Mr Quammen, but greater still is credit to Mr Darwin
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- howard b shaker
- 08-17-24
The Reluctant Mr Darwin
Brilliantly encapsulated Darwin's career concisely in accessible language . The narrator had an authoritative voice and was easy to follow. Enjoyed the experience.
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- KmwT
- 06-29-17
chapter 23 and 24 are the same text
Audible chapter 23 is repeated as chapter 24, but great book otherwise. I highly recommend it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- MM
- 03-08-16
Must Read
I love this book.
Too often in school we learn about scientific principles and scientists without any historic context. It seems like they are geniuses who can not be touched and once those theories come into being, they are put on a pedestal and can not be modified. If something is in a text book it must be true!
This book put Charles Darwin and Natural Selection in context. The book makes Charles Darwin feels all too human and explains why Natural Selection is so incendiary.
I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in science or history.
David Quammen is a great writer and he tells an amazing story.
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- GB
- 11-11-20
Loved it.
Loved the narration and the eloquence the way it was written for a natural flow and easy grasp. Might check more of his works. Impressed by author.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-15-24
Mr Darwin revisited
Originally I was disappointed that the Voyage of the Beagle wouldn’t be covered but the years after Beagle were filled with experimentations, correspondences and thinking. These along with seemingly unrelated experiments and personal happiness and tragedies occurring were the fertilizer allowing Darwin to digest all that data and synthesize it into the “discovery”.
His life was dictated by his pursuits and his passions not academic laurels
Great read!
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- J B Tipton
- 11-06-07
Darwin portrait.
This is a well-written and entertaining book. It would be a fine introduction to Darwin and the Origin of Species. Grover Gardner is the best reader of non-fiction I have heard.
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16 people found this helpful