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. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by James Moore and Adrian Desmond.
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.
Charles Darwin (1809-82), a Victorian scientist and naturalist, has become one of the most famous figures of science to date. The advent of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 challenged and contradicted all contemporary biological and religious beliefs.
If you enjoyed The Descent of Man, you might like Darwin's On the Origin of Species, also available in Penguin Classics. Views: 442
Geoff MacLeod is having his worse day ever. As WRLA’s Meteorologist, he failed to predict the storm of the century. What could possibly be worse? Then Elijah moves into the vacant apartment next door. He’s an eccentric older gent who seems harmless enough. That is, until he takes to the roof of their building to do the impossible - wave a staff in the air and … change the weather!This short story is for the weather lover at heart. If your favorite moment of any storm is the last few moments just before the rain falls - the clouds heavy with menace, the gusts swaying the trees, the lighting just short of danger. If only the energy and exhilaration of that moment could be tapped ... if only you could control the weather! Views: 441
"Revisiter le passé est une décision dangereuse. Car nous serons face à une alternative posée par la Vérité que l’on pourrait traduire d’une manière girardienne comme choix entre l’imitation ou la ressemblance. Selon la branche que nous choisirons nous irons vers le dépassement ou la violence infinie". M.F.Cute story about little dragon called Triglav, who likes to play with small animals. His Mama and Papa Dragon does not like this, because they want him to become some day a really scary dragon. So, Triglav tries to obey unless three bad volves want to eat his friends. Then he stands for his friends and breathe fire for the first time in his life. It's important to defend Your friend even if You don't know how to do this... Fully illustrated on each of the 23 horizontal pages. The hand-drawn illustrations use vivid colors to enhance the story. For children 2 to 6 years old. Tested on daughter :-) Views: 437
Magic has a price. But someone else will pay. Every time a spell is cast, a bit of bramble sprouts, sending up tangling vines, bloody thorns, and threatening a poisonous sleep. It sprouts in tilled fields and in neighbors' roof beams, thrusts up from between street cobbles, and bursts forth from sacks of powdered spice. A bit of magic, and bramble follows. A little at first, and then more--until whole cities are dragged down under tangling vines and empires lie dead, ruins choked by bramble forest. Monuments to people who loved magic too much.
In paired novellas, award-winning authors Tobias Buckell and Paolo Bacigalupi explore a shared world where magic is forbidden and its use is rewarded with the axe. A world of glittering memories and a desperate present, where everyone uses a little magic, and someone else always pays the price.
In the beleageured city of Khaim, a lone alchemist seeks a solution to a deadly threat. The bramble, a plant that feeds upon magic, now presses upon Khaim, nourished by the furtive spellcasting of its inhabitants and
threatening to strangle the city under poisonous vines. Driven by desperation and genius, the alchemist constructs a device that transcends magic, unlocking the mysteries of bramble s essential nature. But the power of his newly-built balanthast is even greater than he dreamed. Where he sought to save a city
and its people, the balanthast has the potential to save the world entire--if it doesn t destroy him and his family first. Views: 433
How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolf Erich Raspe A certain eighteenth-century German noble ventured abroad for military service and returned with a series of amusingly outrageous stories. Baron Munchausen\'s astounding feats included riding cannonballs, traveling to the Moon, and pulling himself out of a bog by his own hair. Listeners delighted in hearing about these unlikely adventures, and in 1785, the stories were collected and published as Baron Munchausen\'s Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. By the nineteenth century, the tales had undergone expansions and transformations by several notable authors and had been translated into many languages. A figure as colorful as the Baron naturally appeals to the artistic imagination, and he has been depicted in numerous works of art. His definitive visual image, however, belongs to Gustave Doré. Famed for his engravings of scenes from the Bible, the Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, and other literary classics, Doré created theatrical illustrations of the Baron\'s escapades that perfectly re-create the stories\' picaresque humor. Views: 430
"Deux Semaines" is the story of Jay, a middle aged man who decides to seek the advice of a therapist after losing the love of his life. The terror of falling into a mid-life psychosis compels him to reveal his story in it's most intimate detail. The passion that burns within the memories of his concealed pain will take him back to her, and to his friends as if he traveled back in time.The Ruling Elite and Other Stories is a collection of short fantasy from Xina Marie Uhl and Janet Loftis. Here you'll find a slave-mercenary struggling to save the life of his mistress, a palace guard defending his city against the destroyer of prophecy, a wanderer who brings more than just past grief into the lives of four sisters, two men who go on a dangerous hunt to kill the witches destroying their village, an outcast trying to outwit the village oracle and get justice for her murdered mother, and a captain who discovers how high the cost is to return the dead to their rightful homes. Come read stories which fuse fantasy with history and anthropology by two of XC Publishing's most talented writers. Views: 421
Our lives are determined by relationships, some fleeting, some lifelong. But most are in between. Some make good, some go bad. The life is searching, learning, discovering; sometimes about yourself if you look. The extremes of emotions can make the middle ground so very hard to find. But until you've flown to the dark valleys, you'll never appreciating soaring like an eagle above the mountains.Our lives are determined by relationships, some fleeting, some lifelong. But most are in between. Some relationships are made good, some go bad. We are often left wondering how and why some things changed. The searching, the learning, the discovery sometimes of yourself, if you really look. Through this we can experience the extremes of emotion which can make the middle ground so hard to find. But unless we have been to the dark valleys, we will never learn that we can soar in the sun above the highest mountains like an eagle. Views: 420
Sixteen year old Ricky Chavez is in trouble. Suspended from school, he has to face his older brother and legal guardian, Frank. Trouble is, Frank meets him with a belt. Bruised and depressed, Ricky drags himself to his evening job. His co-worker, Maria de Leon, reaches out to him, and he falls in love. Trouble is, she belongs to a gang.Sixteen year old Ricky Chavez is in trouble. Suspended from school, he has to face his older brother and legal guardian, Frank. Trouble is, Frank meets him with a belt. Bruised and depressed, Ricky drags himself to his evening job. His co-worker, Maria de Leon, reaches out to him, and he falls in love. Trouble is, she belongs to a gang. Being in love with Maria means hanging around Locos 18, her gang. Trouble is, that means ditching school and ending up with a report card full of C's, D's, and an F. But a bad report card is the least of Ricky's troubles. Maria's gang, Locos 18, comes in conflict with another gang, Westside Raza, when a Locos girl flirts with a Westside boy. When he beats her up, Locos goes looking for him. In the violent showdown, Ricky recognizes the conseequences of his association with Maria and Locos 18. He's left with a decision. Trouble is, he doesn't like either one. Views: 420
On planet Tirano my mother leads an order of genetically engineered women. Clones of females who died valiantly in battle guard Tirano's monarch. The aristocracy are pureblooded descendants of the leaders of the mother ship that landed two millennia ago. Imagine the inbreeding that has resulted during those two millennia. Nonetheless, in this milieu, I'm the one stigmatized as a bizarre creature.Planet Tirano creates a unique milieu for the stories of the series The Encircling Belts of Tirano Saga. Planet Tirano’s aristocracy consists only of pureblooded descendants of the leaders of the mother ship that landed two millennia ago. An order of genetically engineered women, all of whom were conceived in vitro, control Tirano’s computer network and hyperspace portals. The Vhirko, clones of women who died valiantly in battle, guard Tirano’s monarch at all times. Tirano has been at war for decades with a savage alien species that becomes sentient only if mentally linked in groups of four or more.Tirano’s King Mhikhel unleashes fundamental, and uncontrollable, changes to this milieu when he acknowledges as his child an illegitimate son of a commoner and raises the child (Tarnlot) as a prince. Despite the aristocracy’s antagonism, Mhikhel grooms Tarnlot to serve as the Lord Chancellor (the highest governmental post, which is normally held by a member of the aristocracy) when Mhikhel’s heir (Prince Zhun’Mar) assumes the throne.In A Bastard’s Oath Tarnlot must rescue the throne for Zhun’Mar’s by foiling both an aristocrat’s coup d’etat and the aliens’ coup de main. In the series’ second installment, A Dream Is A Pinhole In Time, Tarnlot and Zhun’Mar escape an ambush in deep space by entering a hyperspace fissure that strands them on a planet in an unknown galaxy: present day Earth. The third installment, Outliers of Tirano, begins the stories of Siniastra, Zhun’Mar's daughter.Even though the installments occur in chronological order, each is an independent story. Accordingly, you can read the stories in any order. Views: 419
The Early Asimov or, Eleven Years of Trying is a 1972 collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov. Each story is accompanied by commentary by the author, who gives details about his life and his literary achievements in the period in which he wrote the story. Views: 415
Two young boys find some very unusual new pets in this short story from a Grand Master of Science Fiction. Tagging along while his astronomer father visits an industrialist at his vast estate, young Slim is lucky enough to make fast friends with the industrialist’s son, Red, who has recently caught some very strange animals on the property. The animals seem intelligent enough, and Red recruits Slim to help him train the odd creatures to do circus tricks. But the boys are about to discover their playthings aren’t exactly animals—and they’ve allowed themselves to be caught for a reason . . . Youth is a riveting tale from the author of countless classics, including I, Robot and the Foundation Trilogy, which won the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices. Views: 414
This collection of Clarke's work was originally published in 1953, when it was selected as one of the best Science Fiction books of the year by Boucher and McComas. It contains many short stories that would later become classics, including "The Sentinel"-the basis for the later classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
These stories present a brilliant showcase of Clarke's many-layered approach to the moral dilemmas of scientific advancement-from the thrilling and brutal "Breaking Strain" to the more poetic and thoughtful "Second Dawn." This collection represents a tour-de-force of Science Fiction storytelling sure to delight fans of Clarke's work and the SF genre. Views: 411
Domino and his army chiefs holds strategic war conference, launch relentless battles against the anointed saints. It is a beginning of a great war and he fiercely wage it to destroy the saints. The battle is declared and you are a target . You need to read this interesting story and get yourself prepared to earn the victory.'Declaration of War' is the story of Domino and his war against the saints of Christ. After declaring the war, he holds strategic meeting with his army commanders and sternly charges to execute full war plans without fail. What follows is the bitter beginning of a full blown war. Views: 409
