Patagonia Daily

Patagonia Daily
 AUTHOR: Charles Darwin
 Pages: 126

 REVIEW:
 At just 22 years old, on December 27, 1831, Charles Darwin embarked from his native England on a journey that would not only be decisive for his own life but would also become the revolutionary, and at the same time traumatic, mirror in which science would see itself from then on. This journey, which he meticulously recorded in voluminous journals, brought him to the shores of the Río de la Plata and then took him to the mysterious, distant, and unexplored Argentine Patagonia. These five years around the world were captured in his now classic *A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World*. This journal, from which his Patagonian journey is excerpted here, reveals not only an attentive and curious scientist but also a particularly perceptive human being for whom nothing was superfluous. It could be said that in this work he demonstrates his aptitude for anthropology, geology, zoology, and paleontology, without neglecting, of course, his keen observations as a budding sociologist. His work, of great scientific value, is both fascinating and intriguing for the lay reader, who can glimpse in these writings a sensitive, committed, and ultimately, human genius.