Product Description

The Origin of Species sold out on the first day of its publication in 1859. It is the major book of the nineteenth century, and one of the most readable and accessible of the great revolutionary works of the scientific imagination.
The Origin of Species was the first mature and persuasive work to explain how species change through the process of natural selection. Upon its publication, the book began to transform attitudes about society and religion, and was soon used to justify the philosophies of communists, socialists, capitalists, and even Germany's National Socialists. But the most quoted response came from Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's friend and also a renowned naturalist, who exclaimed, "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!"

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17400 in Books
• Published on: 1995-05-22
• Released on: 1995-05-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 544 pages

Amazon.com
It's hard to talk about The Origin of Species without making statements that seem overwrought and fulsome. But it's true: this is indeed one of the most important and influential books ever written, and it is one of the very few groundbreaking works of science that is truly readable.

To a certain extent it suffers from the Hamlet problem--it's full of clichés! Or what are now clichés, but which Darwin was the first to pen. Natural selection, variation, the struggle for existence, survival of the fittest: it's all in here.

Darwin's friend and "bulldog" T.H. Huxley said upon reading the Origin, "How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of that." Alfred Russel Wallace had thought of the same theory of evolution Darwin did, but it was Darwin who gathered the mass of supporting evidence--on domestic animals and plants, on variability, on sexual selection, on dispersal--that swept most scientists before it. It's hardly necessary to mention that the book is still controversial: Darwin's remark in his conclusion that "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history" is surely the pinnacle of British understatement. --Mary Ellen Curtin

From AudioFile
Very few people can confidently summarize Charles Darwin's contribution to the theory of evolution. Fewer still can claim an understanding of his methods. This two-cassette abridgment will put the average lay person well ahead of his peers on both counts. Ken Ruta has a very listenable voice and reads Darwin's lucid, dense prose with appropriate deliberatation and clarity. The sound is a bit telephone-like (lacking in lows) but is perfectly intelligible. J.N. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Victorian Studies
A masterful condensation.

Customer Reviews

Amazing Book!!!
First you must read the voyage of the beagle by Darwin in which this book is base and it will make much more sense for you to read!!!!

Darwinism is alive and good today
I read this book, here in Brazil.The author, Darwin was an atheist and a racist.Writen at the same time and place, as Francis Galton and Karl Marx, Darwin didn't followed both of these charlatans, to the sewages of history.
The theory of evolution began first in Greece and was also supported by another english, Wallace; but Charles Darwin, with this book really put evolution in mankind's mind.This book was read by Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill,Mussolini,etc.
Someone will claims that Darwin knew nothing, about the genes and DNA.Fossils found decades after this book be published, also put new evidences to evolution.Even so, the main claim of this book,evolution, was increased in believe, by time.Begined by this book, darwinism is alive and good today.

This edition is poorly formatted.
Darwin's _Origin of Species_ is a phenomenal work and was truly brilliant and insightful at the time. It's a classic of science and it's one of those books that everyone should read.

That said, this particular Kindle edition of the book is disappointing. Primarily, the text is fully-justified rather than normal left-aligned (right-ragged). (This means that spacing between words varies so that the last characters of each line end up being aligned along the righthand margin, and the first characters are still aligned along the left margin.) It's a well-known principle of typography that justified text is harder to read than ragged text -- the spacing between words is variable, so your eyes have to work harder to move over the text. I don't see why this edition would have made that choice.

If you want to read this excellent book, you might consider a different edition.