{"product_id":"charles-darwin-victorian-mythmaker-1","title":"A N Wilson: Charles Darwin [2017] hardback","description":"\u003cp\u003e'\u003cb\u003eHugely enjoyable\u003c\/b\u003e' \u003ci\u003e- Spectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003cb\u003eA lucid, elegantly written and thought-provoking social and intellectual history\u003c\/b\u003e' \u003ci\u003e- Evening Standard\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003cb\u003eAs a historian trying to put Darwin in the context of his time, there is surely no better biographer than Wilson' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e- The Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A work of scholarship that is hard to put down'\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003ci\u003eDeborah Cadbury\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eCharles Darwin: the man who discovered evolution? The man who killed off God? Or a flawed man of his age, part genius, part ruthless careerist who would not acknowledge his debts to other thinkers?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this bold new life - the first single volume biography in twenty-five years - A. N. Wilson, the acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eThe Victorians\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eGod's Funeral\u003c\/i\u003e, goes in search of the celebrated but contradictory figure Charles Darwin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDarwin was described by his friend and champion, Thomas Huxley, as a 'symbol'. But what did he symbolize? In Wilson's portrait, both sympathetic and critical, Darwin was two men. On the one hand, he was a naturalist of genius, a patient and precise collector and curator who greatly expanded the possibilities of taxonomy and geology. On the other hand, Darwin, a seemingly diffident man who appeared gentle and even lazy, hid a burning ambition to be a universal genius. He longed to have a theory which explained everything.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut was Darwin's 1859 master work, \u003ci\u003eOn the Origin of Species\u003c\/i\u003e, really what it seemed, a work about natural history? Or was it in fact a consolation myth for the Victorian middle classes, reassuring them that the selfishness and indifference to the poor were part of nature's grand plan? \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCharles Darwin: Victorian Mythmaker\u003c\/i\u003e is a radical reappraisal of one of the great Victorians, a book which isn't afraid to challenge the Darwinian orthodoxy while bringing us closer to the man, his revolutionary idea and the wider Victorian age.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Wilson, A N","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":44492460327202,"sku":"9781444794885","price":9.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0616\/4001\/6057\/files\/wilson-a-n-a-n-wilson-charles-darwin-2017-hardback-9781444794885-60218987381075.jpg?v=1732767789","url":"https:\/\/chaptersbookstore.pro\/products\/charles-darwin-victorian-mythmaker-1","provider":"Chapters Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}