DISCOVERING LIFE'S STORY

The second in a series about life sciences, this volume provides a comprehensive history of how the theory of evolution took root, grew, and flourished.

In 12 chronological chapters spanning from the mid-1700s to the turn of the 20th century, the book highlights a panoply of revolutionary ideas, brave thinkers, and careful researchers responsible for our understanding of geologic time, genetic mutation, and natural selection. Some of the figures Hakim introduces will be familiar to any high school biology student, such as Charles Darwin, Carl Linnaeus, and Gregor Mendel. Others are lesser known, such as Mary Anning (an English fossil hunter who made pivotal discoveries during the Enlightenment), Jeanne Baret (a Frenchwoman who disguised herself as a man in order to collect plants from around the world), and Geneviève Thiroux d’Arconville (an 18th-century French scientist who researched putrefaction and decay). While the scientific ideas presented are big, the straightforward prose simplifies the concepts so that the work reads almost like a novel, and the author’s use of the present tense lends immediacy. The pleasing layout, with many photos, drawings, etchings, paintings, and textboxes, animates the text even further. Students seeking a good resource for a report on evolution and related matters will find a wealth of useful material here.

A compelling and important history of a seminal idea.