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The real story behind the discovery of evolution--the surprising tale of the geniuses, the renegades, and the infidels who dared to seek out truth and who paved the way for Darwin's Origin of Species. Evolution is one of the great ideas of our time, but contrary to popular belief, it was not discovered single-handedly by a British genius in the middle of the nineteenth century. It is an idea that emerged over many centuries, and that was cultivated by daring men across the globe who had the imagination to speculate on nature's extraordinary ways and who had the courage to articulate such speculations at a time when to do so was often heresy. In Darwin's Ghosts Rebecca Stott tells the story of the collective discovery of evolution, from Aristotle in Greece in 300 B.C. to the Arab world in the first century through Europe in the mid-eighteenth century and up to the publication of Darwin's book in 1859. This is a fascinating book about the history of ideas in addition to being an insightful study of one of the most important and controversial theories of our time. About the Author REBECCA STOTT is a professor of English literature and creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. She is the author of the novels Ghostwalk and The Coral Thief and a biography, Darwin and the Barnacle. She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio.