The Descent of Man

ByCharles Darwin & Carl Zimmer

Release Date: 2007-11-27
Genre: Life Sciences

Description

Applying his controversial theory of evolution to the origins of the human species, Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man was the culmination of his life's work.

In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin refused to discuss human evolution, believing the subject too 'surrounded with prejudices'. He had been reworking his notes since the 1830s, but only with trepidation did he finally publish The Descent of Man in 1871. The book notoriously put apes in our family tree and made the races one family, diversified by 'sexual selection' - Darwin's provocative theory that female choice among competing males leads to diverging racial characteristics. Named by Sigmund Freud as 'one of the ten most significant books' ever written, Darwin's Descent of Man continues to shape the way we think about what it is that makes us uniquely human.

In their introduction, James Moore and Adrian Desmond, acclaimed biographers of Charles Darwin, call for a radical re-assessment of the book, arguing that its core ideas on race were fired by Darwin's hatred of slavery. The text is the second and definitive edition and this volume also contains suggestions for further reading, a chronology and biographical sketches of prominent individuals mentioned.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

More by Charles Darwin & Carl Zimmer

On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

4
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Charles Darwin

4
The Descent of Man

Charles Darwin

4
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

4
The Voyage of the Beagle

Charles Darwin

4
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

Charles Darwin

4
On the origin of species

Charles Darwin

4.5
The Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

4
The Complete Harvard Classics - ALL 71 Volumes

Benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, William Penn, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, John Milton, Thomas Browne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Burns, Saint Augustine, Thomas à Kempis, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Plutarch, Virgil, Miguel de Cervantes, John Bunyan, Izaak Walton, Aesop, The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, John Dryden, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning, George Gordon Byron, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Christopher Marlowe, Dante Alighieri, Alessandro Manzoni, Homer, Richard Henry Dana, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich von Schiller, Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, Abraham Cowley, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson, Sydney Smith, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, Thomas De Quincey, Thomas Babington Macaulay, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Ruskin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Alan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, Michael Faraday, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, Simon Newcomb, Archibald Geikie, Benvenuto Cellini, Michel de Montaigne, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Ernest Renan, Immanuel Kant, Giuseppe Mazzini, Herodotus, Tacitus, Francis Drake, Philip Nichols, Francis Pretty, Walter Bigges, Edward Haies, Walter Raleigh, René Descartes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, William Henry Harrison, Niccolò Machiavelli, William Roper, Thomas More, Martin Luther, John Locke, George Berkeley, Hippocrates, Ambroise Pare, William Harvey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, William Shakespeare, Thomas Dekker, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, John Webster, Philip Massinger, Blaise Pascal, Charles W. Eliot, William A. Neilson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Edward Everett Hale, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Honoré Balzac, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Alphonse Daudet, Gottfried Keller, Guy de Maupassant, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Juan Valera, Bjornstjerne Bjornson & Alexander L. Kielland

3
Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries visited during the voyage round the world of H.M.S. Beagle

Charles Darwin

4.5
On the origin of species

Charles Darwin

3.5
On The Origin of Species 1st Edition

Charles Darwin
Coral Reefs

Charles Darwin

5
The Complete Harvard Classics - 71 Volumes

Charles W. Eliot, Benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, William Penn, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, John Milton, Thomas Browne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Burns, Saint Augustine, Thomas à Kempis, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Plutarch, Virgil, Miguel de Cervantes, John Bunyan, Izaak Walton, Aesop, The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, John Dryden, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning, George Gordon Byron, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Christopher Marlowe, Dante Alighieri, Alessandro Manzoni, Homer, Richard Henry Dana, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich von Schiller, Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, Abraham Cowley, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson, Sydney Smith, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, Thomas De Quincey, Thomas Babington Macaulay, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Ruskin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Alan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, Michael Faraday, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, Simon Newcomb, Archibald Geikie, Benvenuto Cellini, Michel de Montaigne, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Ernest Renan, Immanuel Kant, Giuseppe Mazzini, Herodotus, Tacitus, Francis Drake, Philip Nichols, Francis Pretty, Walter Bigges, Edward Haies, Walter Raleigh, René Descartes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, William Henry Harrison, Niccolò Machiavelli, William Roper, Thomas More, Martin Luther, John Locke, George Berkeley, Hippocrates, Ambroise Pare, William Harvey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, William Shakespeare, Thomas Dekker, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, John Webster, Philip Massinger, Blaise Pascal, William A. Neilson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Edward Everett Hale, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Honoré Balzac, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Alphonse Daudet, Gottfried Keller, Guy de Maupassant, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Juan Valera, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson & Alexander L. Kielland
The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species

Charles Darwin
On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1

Charles Darwin
Volcanic Islands

Charles Darwin
The Foundations of the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin
El origen de las especies

Charles Darwin

4
The Origin Of Species

Charles Darwin & Julian Huxley

4
The Power of Movement in Plants

Charles Darwin
Insectivorous Plants

Charles Darwin
The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I.

Charles Darwin
The Complete Harvard Classics 2024 Edition [newly updated]

Benjamin Franklin, Plato, William Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, John Woolman, William Penn, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, John Milton, Thomas Browne, Robert Burns, Saint Augustine, Thomas à Kempis, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Cicero, Adam Smith, Pliny the Younger, Plutarch, Virgil, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, John Bunyan, Izaak Walton, Anonymous, Aesop, Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, John Dryden, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Christopher Marlowe, Dante Alighieri, Alessandro Manzoni, Homer, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich von Schiller, Michael Faraday, Hermann von Helmholtz, Lord Kelvin, Simon Newcomb, Sir Archibald Geikie, Benvenuto Cellini, Michel de Montaigne, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Ernest Renan, Immanuel Kant, Giuseppe Mazzini, Herodotus, Tacitus, Philiip Nichols, Francis Pretty, Walter Bigges, Edward Haies, Walter Raleigh, René Descartes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Sir Thomas Malory, William Harrison, Niccolò Machiavelli, William Roper, Sir Thomas More, Martin Luther, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, Hippocrates, Ambroise Pare, William Harvey, Edward Jenner, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, Charles Lyell, Confucius, Christian, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, John Webster, Philip Massinger, Blaise Pascal, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Francis Bret Harte, Samuel L. Clemens, Edward Everett Hale, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Alphonse Daudet, Guy de Maupassant, Gottfried Keller, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Juan Valera, Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Alexander L. Kielland & Charles Eliot

3
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. I

Charles Darwin
Geological Observations on South America

Charles Darwin
More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1

Charles Darwin
Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. 1, No. 2

Charles Darwin
On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin
The Complete Harvard Classics Shelf: 51 Volumes of Essential Classics + 20 Volumes of the Greatest Works of Fiction

Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, John Milton, Thomas Browne, Benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, William Penn, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Burns, Saint Augustine, Thomas à Kempis, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Plutarch, Virgil, Miguel de Cervantes, John Bunyan, Izaak Walton, Aesop, The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, John Dryden, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning, George Gordon Byron, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Christopher Marlowe, Dante Alighieri, Alessandro Manzoni, Homer, Richard Henry Dana, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich von Schiller, Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, Abraham Cowley, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson, David Hume, Sydney Smith, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, Thomas De Quincey, Thomas Babington Macaulay, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Ruskin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Alan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, Michael Faraday, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, Simon Newcomb, Archibald Geikie, Benvenuto Cellini, Michel de Montaigne, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Ernest Renan, Immanuel Kant, Giuseppe Mazzini, Herodotus, Tacitus, Francis Drake, Philip Nichols, Francis Pretty, Walter Bigges, Edward Haies, Walter Raleigh, René Descartes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, William Henry Harrison, Niccolò Machiavelli, William Roper, Thomas More, Martin Luther, John Locke, George Berkeley, Hippocrates, Ambroise Pare, William Harvey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, William Shakespeare, Thomas Dekker, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, John Webster, Philip Massinger, Blaise Pascal, Charles W. Eliot, William A. Neilson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, George Eliot, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Edward Everett Hale, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Honoré Balzac, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Alphonse Daudet, Guy de Maupassant, Gottfried Keller, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Juan Valera, Bjornstjerne Bjornson & Alexander L. Kielland
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection

Charles Darwin
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication — Volume 2

Charles Darwin
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2

Charles Darwin
The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants

Charles Darwin
50 Classic Autobiographies

Mark Twain & Charles Darwin
Note on the Resemblances and Differences in the Structure and the Development of the Brain in Man and Apes

Charles Darwin
The Harvard Classics - All 284 Works in 71 Volumes

Adam Smith, Aeschylus, Aesop, Alessandro Manzoni, Alexander L. Kielland, Alfred de Musset, Alphonse Daudet, Aristophanes, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Benjamin Franklin, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Blaise Pascal, Bret Harte, Miguel de Cervantes, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Christopher Marlowe, Dante Alighieri, David Hume, Edgar Allan Poe, Edmund Burke, Edward Everett Hale, Epictetus, Euripides, Francis Bacon, Friedrich von Schiller, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Berkeley, George Eliot, George Sand, Gottfried Keller, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Guy de Maupassant, Hans Christian Andersen, Henry Fielding, Henry James, Hermann von Helmholtz, Homer, Honoré Balzac, Ivan Turgenev, Izaak Walton, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Jane Austen, Jean Froissart, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Jean Racine, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, John Bunyan, John Dryden, John Locke, John Milton, John Stuart Mill, John Webster, John Woolman, Juan Valera, Laurence Sterne, Leo Tolstoy, Lord Byron, Lord Kelvin, Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Mark Twain, Martin Luther, Michael Faraday, Molière, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Niccolò Machiavelli, Oliver Goldsmith, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Philip Massinger, Pierre Corneille, Plato, Pliny the Younger, Plutarch, Ralph Waldo Emerson, René Descartes, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Richard Henry Dana, Robert Browning, Robert Burns, Saint Augustine, Simon Newcomb, Sir Archibald Geikie, Sir Thomas Browne, Sir Thomas Malory, Sir Thomas More, Sir Walter Scott, Sophocles, Theodor Fontane, Theodor Storm, Thomas à Kempis, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Hobbes, Eirikr Magnusson, William Morris, Francis B. Gummere, John O'Hagan, Sir Edwin Arnold, Whitley Stokes, Victor Marie Hugo, Virgil, Voltaire, Washington Irving, William Harrison, William Makepeace Thackeray, William Penn, William Roper & William Shakespeare
Charles Darwin's Collection [ 4 books ]

Charles Darwin

4
More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2

Charles Darwin
The Voyage of the Beagle

Charles Darwin
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

Charles Darwin
The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms, with observations on their habits

Charles Darwin
Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom

Charles Darwin
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

3.5
22 Great Biographies& Memoirs Include：George Washington，John Adams，Abraham Lincoln，Ulysses Grant，James Garfield，Theodore Roosevelt，Memoirs Of Napoleon Bonaparte-Louis Antoine Fauvelet De Bourrienne， The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin， Theodore Roosevelt An Autobiography ， Personal Memoirs Of U. S. Grant ， The Autobiography Of Benvenuto Cellini，

Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Benvenuto Cellini, Horatio Alger, Jr, Charles Darwin, Jacob Abbott, Frank Lewis Dyer, Victor Hugo, Lytton Strachey, William M. Thayer, W.H.G. Kingston, John G. Nicolay, John T. Morse Jr., Edward Gibbon, Rabindranath Tagore, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Stuart Mill, Albert Keim, Louis Lumet, Anthony Trollope & John Rae

3.5
The Origin of Species (Illustrated Edition)

Charles Darwin

4
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication — Volume 1

Charles Darwin
The Works of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin
Darwin’s Journal: The Galapagos (Illustrated Edition)

Charles Darwin