Kirjahaku

John Stevens Henslow is known for his formative influence on Charles Darwin, who described their meeting as the one circumstance ‘which influenced my career more than any other’. As Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, Henslow was Darwin’s teacher and eventual life-long friend, but what of the man himself? In this new biography, much previously unpublished material has been carefully sifted and selected to produce a rounded picture of a remarkable and unusually likable academic. The time in 1829–31 when Darwin ‘walked with Henslow’ in and around Cambridge was followed directly by Darwin’s voyage around the world. The gradually changing relationship between teacher and pupil over the course of time is revealed through their correspondence, illuminating a remarkable friendship which persisted, in spite of Darwin’s eventual atheism and Henslow’s never-failing liberal Christian belief, to the end of Henslow’s life.

Originally published in 1981, this generously illustrated volume marked the 150th anniversary of the acquisition by the University of Cambridge of the site for its 'New Botanic Garden'. Written by a distinguished authority on British and European plants, the book honours the eminent scientists and key ideas that have been most influential not only in the history of the Botanic Gardens but also in guiding the development of botany itself from the foundations laid by John Ray in the mid-seventeenth century. It also includes rarely seen archival material . The core theme of the book is whole-plant botany, as distinct from cell biology or the study of the 'lower plants' (bacteria and fungi). Relatively little emphasis is given to genetics, plant physiology or ecology. The reader is nevertheless richly rewarded by this engaging and erudite account of Cambridge botany over more than three centuries.