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Darwin's theory of natural selection is also a humane and inspirational vision of ecological inter-relatedness revealing the almost unthinkably complex and mutual inter-dependencies between animal and plant life, climate and physical environment and - by implication - the human world.
Book Details
Publisher:
WORDSWORTH EDITIONS
Publication Date:
11-Jun-1997
ISBN:
9781853267802
Guardian review
On the Origin of Species
Sue Arnold the guardian Sat 07 March 2009
On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin, abridged and read by Richard Dawkins (6hrs, CSA Word, £18.59)
For once I'm not complaining about an audio being abridged. If anyone is qualified to edit Darwin, it has to be the former Oxford Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and author of The God Delusion Richard Dawkins. It's based on the first of the six editions of the book published between 1859 and 1872, which Dawkins, with customary contrariness, reckons is the most modern. I'm no expert on Victorian scientific texts and have only heard extracts from this one on Melvyn Bragg's Ten Books that Changed the World, but it sounds surprisingly modern to me. Maybe it's the engaging way he reads it, in his light, chatty, unprofessorial voice that makes natural selection as easy to digest as chick lit.
