The evolution of an idea

In the second volume of the Discovering Life’s Story series by bestselling author Joy Hakim, the theory of evolution takes hold – transforming ideas about survival, extinction and life itself. Can species change? Or become extinct? In the eighteenth century, most people didn't think so.

But in the century that followed, our understanding of life was revolutionised.

The Evolution of an Idea, the second volume of Discovering Life’s Story, opens with the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, who attempts to create an organizing system for the myriad forms of life on earth.

It continues into the late 1800s, when two Englishmen – Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace – each develop their own version of a startling new theory of how life-forms change over time, altering the understanding of our place in the great web of life on earth.

In this remarkable volume, author Joy Hakim continues charting the path of human discovery and shows how groundbreaking thinkers began to unlock the biological secrets of our own existence.