Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution
(OverDrive Read)

Rebecca Stott. (2012). Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution. Random House Publishing Group.

Rebecca Stott. 2012. Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution. Random House Publishing Group.

Rebecca Stott, Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution. Random House Publishing Group, 2012.

Rebecca Stott. Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution. Random House Publishing Group, 2012.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{0D5893BA-1C08-49E0-8855-CC483D7E61D5}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{0D5893BA-1C08-49E0-8855-CC483D7E61D5}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/0D5/893/BA/{0D5893BA-1C08-49E0-8855-CC483D7E61D5}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/0D5/893/BA/{0D5893BA-1C08-49E0-8855-CC483D7E61D5}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780679604136
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 204510
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 204510
     2. • type: ASIN
        • value: B005OCYREO
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780679604136
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 204510
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 0812981707

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Rebecca Stott

title

Darwin's Ghosts

dateAdded

2012-07-12T13:46:56.14-04:00

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=426&titleID=686179
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Wake County Public Libraries (NC)
     • id: 1893

sortTitle

Darwins Ghosts The Secret History of Evolution

crossRefId

686179

subtitle

The Secret History of Evolution

id

0d5893ba-1c08-49e0-8855-cc483d7e61d5

starRating

3.4

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: DarwinsGhosts_9780679604136_686179
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780679604136
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 204510
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 6/12/2012
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=0D5893BA-1C08-49E0-8855-CC483D7E61D5&.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: History of Science
2. • value: anthropology
3. • value: Nonfiction
4. • value: Natural history
5. • value: Cultural anthropology
6. • value: Life Sciences
7. • value: Science
8. • value: Aristotle
9. • value: Evolutionary psychology
10. • value: Evolutionary Biology
11. • value: Naturalists
12. • value: Evolution
13. • value: social engineering
14. • value: Innovation
15. • value: Biology
16. • value: denis diderot
17. • value: human evolution
18. • value: History
19. • value: Charles Darwin
20. • value: Sociology
21. • value: Darwin
22. • value: Leonardo da Vinci
23. • value: on the origin of species
24. • value: history books
25. • value: history of evolution
26. • value: science books
27. • value: gifts for history buffs
28. • value: historical nonfiction
29. • value: natural philosophers
30. • value: early evolutionary thinkers
31. • value: sociology books

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Stott, Rebecca
   • bioText:

     Rebecca Stott is a professor of English literature and creative writing at the University of East Anglia and an affiliated scholar at the department of the history and philosophy of science at Cambridge University. She is the author of several books, including Darwin and the Barnacle and the novels Ghostwalk and The Coral Thief. She lives in Cambridge, England.

   • name: Rebecca Stott

imprint

Random House

publishDate

2012-06-12T00:00:00Z

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

Darwin's Ghosts

fullDescription

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
“[An] extraordinarily wide-ranging and engaging book [about] the men who shaped the work of Charles Darwin . . . a book that enriches our understanding of how the struggle to think new thoughts is shared across time and space and people.”—The Sunday Telegraph (London)
Christmas, 1859. Just one month after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin received an unsettling letter. He had expected criticism; in fact, letters were arriving daily, most expressing outrage and accusations of heresy. But this letter was different. It accused him of failing to acknowledge his predecessors, of taking credit for a theory that had already been discovered by others. Darwin realized that he had made an error in omitting from Origin of Species any mention of his intellectual forebears. Yet when he tried to trace all of the natural philosophers who had laid the groundwork for his theory, he found that history had already forgotten many of them.
 
Darwin’s Ghosts tells the story of the collective discovery of evolution, from Aristotle, walking the shores of Lesbos with his pupils, to Al-Jahiz, an Arab writer in the first century, from Leonardo da Vinci, searching for fossils in the mine shafts of the Tuscan hills, to Denis Diderot in Paris, exploring the origins of species while under the surveillance of the secret police, and the brilliant naturalists of the Jardin de Plantes, finding evidence for evolutionary change in the natural history collections stolen during the Napoleonic wars. Evolution was not discovered single-handedly, Rebecca Stott argues, contrary to what has become standard lore, but is an idea that emerged over many centuries, advanced by daring individuals across the globe who had the imagination to speculate on nature’s extraordinary ways, and who had the courage to articulate such speculations at a time when to do so was often considered heresy.
With each chapter focusing on an early evolutionary thinker, Darwin’s Ghosts is a fascinating account of a diverse group of individuals who, despite the very real dangers of challenging a system in which everything was presumed to have been created perfectly by God, felt compelled to understand where we came from. Ultimately, Stott demonstrates, ideas—including evolution itself—evolve just as animals and plants do, by intermingling, toppling weaker notions, and developing over stretches of time. Darwin’s Ghosts presents a groundbreaking new theory of an idea that has changed our very understanding of who we are.
Praise for Darwin’s Ghosts
“Absorbing . . . Stott captures the breathless excitement of an investigation on the cusp of the unknown. . . . A lively, original book.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Stott’s research is broad and unerring; her book is wonderful. . . . An exhilarating romp through 2,000 years of fascinating scientific history.”—Nature
“Stott brings Darwin himself to life. . . . [She] writes with a novelist’s flair. . . . Darwin and the ‘ghosts’ so richly described in Ms. Stott’s enjoyable book are the descendants of Aristotle and Bacon and the ancestors of today’s scientists.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Riveting . . . Stott has done a wonderful job in showing just how many extraordinary people had speculated on where we came from before the great theorist dispelled all doubts.”—The Guardian (U.K.)

popularity

446

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/L1BLQAAAA2a/products/0d5893ba-1c08-49e0-8855-cc483d7e61d5/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
• shareInLibby:
  • href: https://link.overdrive.com/share?q=Y3gKAAWUhr4
  • type: text/HTML

id

0d5893ba-1c08-49e0-8855-cc483d7e61d5

starRating

3.5

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{0D5893BA-1C08-49E0-8855-CC483D7E61D5}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{0D5893BA-1C08-49E0-8855-CC483D7E61D5}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/0D5/893/BA/{0D5893BA-1C08-49E0-8855-CC483D7E61D5}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/0D5/893/BA/{0D5893BA-1C08-49E0-8855-CC483D7E61D5}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: History
2. • value: Science
3. • value: Sociology
4. • value: Nonfiction

publishDateText

06/12/2012

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9780812981704

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

"[An] extraordinarily wide-ranging and engaging book [about] the men who shaped the work of Charles Darwin . . . a book that enriches our understanding of how the struggle to think new thoughts is shared across time and space and people."--The Sunday Telegraph (London)

Christmas, 1859. Just one month after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin received an unsettling letter. He had expected criticism; in fact, letters were arriving daily, most expressing outrage and accusations of heresy. But this letter was different. It accused him of failing to acknowledge his predecessors, of taking credit for a theory that had already been discovered by others. Darwin realized that he had made an error in omitting from Origin of Species any mention of his intellectual forebears. Yet when he tried to trace all of the natural philosophers who had laid the groundwork for his theory, he...

sortTitle

Darwins Ghosts The Secret History of Evolution

crossRefId

686179

classifications

subtitle

The Secret History of Evolution

publisher

Random House Publishing Group

bisacCodes

1. • code: SCI027000
   • description: Science / Life Sciences / Evolution
2. • code: SCI034000
   • description: Science / History
3. • code: SOC002010
   • description: Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social