Darwin's Backyard

How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory

12 October 2018

Description

How Darwin found universal evolutionary truths in simple yet ingenious home-spun experiments.

James T. Costa takes readers on a journey from Charles Darwin’s youth and travels on the HMS Beagle to Down House, his bustling home of forty years. To test his insights into evolution, Darwin devised experiments using his garden and greenhouse, the surrounding land and his home-turned-field-station. His experiments yielded universal truths about nature and evidence for his revolutionary arguments in On the Origin of Species and other watershed works. We accompany Darwin in his myriad pursuits against the backdrop of his enduring marriage, chronic illness, grief at the loss of three children and joy in scientific revelation. At each chapter’s end, Costa shows how we can investigate the wonders of nature, with directions on how to re-create Darwin’s experiments.

Reviews

"If you’ve ever fantasized walking and conversing with the great scientist on the subjects that consumed him, and now wish to add the fullness of reality, read this book." — Edward O. Wilson

"Darwin’s Backyard, is a passionate but balanced celebration of the Victorian scientist’s lifelong obsession with enquiry and how the fields and meadows around his home were a microcosm of the wider world... Costa more than achieves his stated goals of revealing the evolution of Darwin’s insights and the relevance of his methods now." — Nature

"It is a charming book about Darwin’s homespun experiments…" — Times Literary Supplement

"...excellent Darwin's Backyard... James Costa has written an intimate and big-hearted book. In its pages, readers will discover the real Darwin, a complicated man behind a revolutionary theory." — Science Lives

"With Darwin's Backyard, Costa has written an intimate and big-hearted book. In its pages, young readers will discover the complicated man behind the revolutionary theory." — Science Magazine

"Entertaining." — David Dobbs, The New York Times Book Review

Paperback

9780393356304

142 x 211 mm • 464 pages

£13.99

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Ebook

9780393249156

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