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A review by lauren_endnotes
Into the Jungle: Great Adventures in the Search for Evolution by Sean Carroll
5.0
Carroll opens the book with a quote from Rudyard Kipling that basically states that one learns history best when it is told in stories. Carroll believes the same is true for science; so in this book he tells the stories of 19th and 20th century scientists and their discoveries. He frames the book around the "search for evolution", and this spans the early naturalists to the modern geologists who are making discoveries that shape our view of life here on Earth.
I especially enjoyed the chapters on Roy Chapman Andrews (whom I knew nothing about, unfortunately) and his excavations in the Gobi Desert in the 1920s and 30s (Andrews appears to be one of the main people that George Lucas used as the basis for "Indiana Jones" character in his movies), and Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer and J.L.B Smith, who identified the coelacanth in South Africa after it was believed to be extinct for 65 million years. (More info - with great photos - about the coelacanth discovery at the NOVA website.
Very accessible style (with the possible exception of the genetics lesson in the Tony Allison/Sickle-Cell Anemia chapter, it gets a bit technical, but it's a short chapter) perfect for a teen audience or an undergraduate class, or anyone who is interested in the lives behind major scientific discoveries.
I especially enjoyed the chapters on Roy Chapman Andrews (whom I knew nothing about, unfortunately) and his excavations in the Gobi Desert in the 1920s and 30s (Andrews appears to be one of the main people that George Lucas used as the basis for "Indiana Jones" character in his movies), and Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer and J.L.B Smith, who identified the coelacanth in South Africa after it was believed to be extinct for 65 million years. (More info - with great photos - about the coelacanth discovery at the NOVA website.
Very accessible style (with the possible exception of the genetics lesson in the Tony Allison/Sickle-Cell Anemia chapter, it gets a bit technical, but it's a short chapter) perfect for a teen audience or an undergraduate class, or anyone who is interested in the lives behind major scientific discoveries.