Extract
Anyone who has not read a biography of Darwin should correct that deficiency by reading this one. Anyone who has read another Darwin biography should read this one anyway. It is a clear, insightful, and entertaining blend of history of ideas and personal biography. Quammen is one of the best science writers practicing today (The Song of the Dodo and Monsters of God), and he exceeds himself with this biography. Even if you do not care about Darwin, you can be carried along by the literary style.
But of course you must care about Darwin. He is the most important scientist, ever. Newton has been supplanted by Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg, but their physical theories are still clearly incomplete. Evolution by natural selection has grown stronger with every advance in biology and, while it is elaborated, it shows no signs of ever being supplanted. No other scientific finding is as important to the understanding of what it is to be human.
