Iain McCalman's Books

Darwin's Armada

Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of Evolution

By: Iain McCalman

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Darwin's Armada

Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of Evolution

By: Iain McCalman

Darwin's Armadatells the stories of Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Joseph Hooker and Alfred Wallace, four young amateur naturalists from Britain who voyaged to the southern hemisphere during the first half of the nineteenth century in search of adventure and scientific fame. It charts their thrilling voyages to the strange and beautiful lands of the southern hemisphere that reshaped the young mariners' scientific ideas and led them, on returning to Britain, to befriend fellow voyager Charles Darwin. All three crucially influenced the publication and reception of his Origin of Speciesin 1859, one of the formative texts of the modern world. For the first time the Darwinian revolution of ideas is seen as a genuinely collective enterprise and one that had its birth in a series of gripping and human travel adventures. Many of the most urgent ecological and social issues of our times are seen to be prefigured in this compelling story of intellectual discovery.

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Page Count

498

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1847377181

ISBN 13

9781847377180

The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change

By: Iain McCalman

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The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change

By: Iain McCalman

Stretching 1,400 miles along the Australian coast and visible from space, the Great Barrier Reef is home to three thousand individual reefs, more than nine hundred islands, and thousands of marine species, and has alternately been viewed as a deadly maze, an economic bounty, a scientific frontier, and a precarious World Heritage site. Now the historian and explorer Iain McCalman takes us on a new adventure into the reef to reveal how our shifting perceptions of the natural world have shaped this extraordinary seascape. Showcasing the lives of twenty individuals spanning more than two centuries, The Reef highlights our profound desire to conquer, understand, embrace, and ultimately save the world's most complex ocean ecosystem. Opening with the story of Captain James Cook, who sailed unknowingly into the southwest entrance of this vast network of coral outcroppings, McCalman shows how Cook spent months navigating this treacherous underwater labyrinth, struggling to keep his crew alive and his ship afloat, sparring with deceptive shoals and wary native islanders. Through a series of dramatic tales from intrepid explorers, unwitting castaways, inquisitive naturalists, enchanted artists, and impassioned environmentalists who have collectively shaped our ideas about the Great Barrier Reef, McCalman demonstrates how this grand natural wonder of the world was built as much by human imagination as by the industrious, beautiful creatures of the sea. A romantic, historically significant book and a deeply personal journey into the heart of a marine environment in peril, The Reef powerfully captures the delicate relationship between humanity and the natural world.

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Page Count

353

Publisher

Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374711704

ISBN 13

9780374711702

The Last Alchemist

Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason

By: Iain McCalman

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The Last Alchemist

Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason

By: Iain McCalman

Freemason ... Shaman ... Prophet ... Seducer ... Swindler ... Thief ... Heretic Who was the mysterious Count Cagliostro? Depending on whom you ask, he was either a great healer or a dangerous charlatan. Internationally acclaimed historian Iain McCalman documents how Cagliostro crossed paths -- and often swords -- with the likes of Catherine the Great, Marie Antoinette, and Pope Pius VI. He was a muse to William Blake and the inspiration for both Mozart's Magic Flute and Goethe's Faust. Louis XVI had him thrown into the Bastille for his alleged involvement in what would come to be known as "the affair of the necklace." Yet in London, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg, he established "healing clinics" for the poorest of the poor, and his dexterity in the worlds of alchemy and spiritualism won him acclaim among the nobility across Europe. Also the leader of an exotic brand of Freemasonry, Count Cagliostro was indisputably one of the most influential and notorious figures of the latter eighteenth century, overcoming poverty and an ignoble birth to become the darling -- and bane -- of upper-crust Europe.

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Page Count

290

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0061868396

ISBN 13

9780061868399

The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change

By: Iain McCalman

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The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change

By: Iain McCalman

A journey into the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, as experienced by explorers, scientists, and artists"--

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353

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Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374248192

ISBN 13

9780374248192

Darwin's Armada

Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of Evolution

By: Iain McCalman

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Darwin's Armada

Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of Evolution

By: Iain McCalman

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498

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Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1847377181

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9781847377180

Historical Reenactment

From Realism to the Affective Turn

By: Iain McCalman

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Historical Reenactment

From Realism to the Affective Turn

By: Iain McCalman

Since the late 1700s new forms of visual entertainment have tried to simulate the details of nature: reenactment has now become the most widely-consumed form of popular history. This book engages with the quest for definition and appropriate delimitation of reenactment as well as questions about the relationship between realism and affect.

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Page Count

241

Publisher

Springer

Published Date

ISBN 10

0230277098

ISBN 13

9780230277090

Radical Underworld

Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840

By: Iain McCalman

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Radical Underworld

Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840

By: Iain McCalman

This highly acclaimed study draws on information from spy reports and contemporary literature to look at English popular radicalism during the period between the anti-Jacobin government "Terror" of the 1790s and the beginnings of Chartism. The book traces for the first time the history of theunderground revolutionary-republican grouping founded by the agrarian reformer, Thomas Spence. Challenging conventional distinctions between "high" and "low" culture, McCalman illuminates the darker, more populist sides of Romanticism. Radical Underworld broadens the conventional boundaries ofpopular politics and culture by exploring a political underworld connected with poverty, crime, prophetic religion, and literary culture.

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364

Publisher

CUP Archive

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521307554

ISBN 13

9780521307550

The Reef

A Passionate History

By: Iain McCalman

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The Reef

A Passionate History

By: Iain McCalman

The Great Barrier Reef, argues Iain McCalman, has been created by human minds as well as coral polyps, by imaginations as well as natural processes. In this landmark book he charts our shifting perceptions of it, from the terrifying labyrinth that almost sunk Cook's Endeavour to a fragile global treasure. The Reef describes twelve key encounters between people, places, ideas and biosystems. In the nineteenth century the region was infamous for shipwrecks, and when Indigenous clans rescued survivors like Eliza Fraser, their actions were misrepresented in the popular press. Later, the whole world caught the fiery debate between Darwinists and creationists over the origins of this colossal structure. Artists and visionaries celebrated its beauty and fought its exploitation; marine scientists catalogued the threats to its existence. The first social, cultural and environmental history of this World Heritage-listed site, The Reef is an effortlessly readable work by a born storyteller. 'Effortlessly synthesise scientific information, scholarship, fascinating and perceptive accounts of the great environmental and creationist debates over the last two hundred years, and a witty and perceptive appreciation of human foibles.' Jacqueline Kent, Australia Book Review 'Evocative and brilliant. A human history of one of the world's most astonishing ecosystems, and history at its best: enlightening, compelling and impossible to put down.' Mark McKenna 'With this book, McCalman cements his reputation as one of the finest historians of our times.' Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago

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Page Count

416

Publisher

Penguin Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0143572059

ISBN 13

9780143572053

Darwin's Armada: Four Voyages and the Battle for the Theory of Evolution

By: Iain McCalman

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Darwin's Armada: Four Voyages and the Battle for the Theory of Evolution

By: Iain McCalman

Sparkling . . . an extraordinary true-adventure story, complete with trials, tribulations and moments of exultation."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review Award-winning cultural historian Iain McCalman tells the stories of Charles Darwin and his staunchest supporters: Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley, and Alfred Wallace. Beginning with the somber morning of April 26, 1882—the day of Darwin's funeral—Darwin's Armada steps back and recounts the lives and scientific discoveries of each of these explorers, who campaigned passionately in the war of ideas over evolution and advanced the scope of Darwin's work.

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Page Count

423

Publisher

W. W. Norton

Published Date

ISBN 10

0393338770

ISBN 13

9780393338775

Delia Akeley and the Monkey

A Human-Animal Story of Captivity, Patriarchy and Nature

By: Iain McCalman

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Delia Akeley and the Monkey

A Human-Animal Story of Captivity, Patriarchy and Nature

By: Iain McCalman

By telling this story, Iain McCalman illuminates much about human-animal relations and the tyranny of gender inequality. He reinstates a twentieth century story of a dedicated amateur primatologist and her adopted Vervet monkey. On an East-African hunting expedition in 1909, Delia Akeley, a forty-year-old American woman, captured a baby female monkey. Delia's loneliness in an isolating patriarchal world, and her long-frustrated desire to adopt a child, had motivated her to nurture the animal. She named the monkey JT Jr and decided to study her interactions with humans. The unique relationship between Delia and JT unlocked Delia's latent talents of research and observation, anticipating both Jane Goodall's chimpanzee writings and Margaret Mead's Samoan ethnographies. However, Delia's love for JT clashed with her husband Carl's obsession to create a temple of African wildlife dioramas at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Nursing Carl's broken body and realising their diverging interests pushed Delia into a breakdown in Uganda, which led to a savage divorce in Manhattan, and the heartbreaking caging of JT in a Washington zoo. Carl's death triggered a long battle between Delia and Carl's widow, who succeeded in obliterating most of Delia's achievements. In Delia Akeley and the Monkey, Iain McCalman uses official records and personal documents to build a story of passionate love and hate among women, men, animals and museums that predates our times but speaks to our present. It illuminates much about human-animal relations and the tyranny of gender inequality, through reinstating an obscured story of a dedicated amateur primatologist.

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Page Count

236

Publisher

Upswell

Published Date

ISBN 10

1743822421

ISBN 13

9781743822425

The Legend of Red Clydeside

By: Iain McLean

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The Legend of Red Clydeside

By: Iain McLean

This text analyzes what really happened in Glasgow in the tumultuous years following World War I. It shows the real improvements in social conditions, and explores the impact of these years on the coming dominance of the Labour party in the west of Scotland.

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276

Publisher

Birlinn Ltd

Published Date

ISBN 10

178885554X

ISBN 13

9781788855549

Scotland and the Abolition of Black Slavery, 1756-1838

By: Iain Whyte

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Scotland and the Abolition of Black Slavery, 1756-1838

By: Iain Whyte

Although much has been written about Scottish involvement in slavery, the contribution of Scots to the abolition of black slavery has not yet been sufficiently recognised. This book starts with a Virginian slave seeking his freedom in Scotland in 1756 and ends with the abolition of the apprenticeship scheme in the West Indian colonies in 1838. Contemporary documents and periodicals reveal a groundswell of revulsion to what was described as "e;the horrible traffik in humans"e;. Petitions to Parliament came from remote islands in Shetland as well as from large public meetings in cities. In a land steeped in religion, ministers and church leaders took the lead in giving theological support to the cause of abolition. The contributions of five London Scots who were pivotal to the campaign throughout Britain are set against opposition to abolition from many Scots with commercial interests in the slave trade and the sugar plantations. Missionaries and miners, trades guilds and lawyers all played their parts in challenging slavery. Many of their struggles and frustrations are detailed for the first time in an assessment of the unique contribution made by Scotland and the Scots to the destruction of an institution whose effects are still with us today.

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Page Count

256

Publisher

Edinburgh University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0748626999

ISBN 13

9780748626991

Radical Underworld

Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840

By: Iain McCalman

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Radical Underworld

Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840

By: Iain McCalman

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364

Publisher

CUP Archive

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521307554

ISBN 13

9780521307550

The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro

The Greatest Enchanter of the Eighteenth Century

By: Iain McCalman

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The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro

The Greatest Enchanter of the Eighteenth Century

By: Iain McCalman

Guiseppe Balsamo, the Count of Cagliostro, was an 18th-century Sicilian who became a magician, a mystic, a healer, a Freemason, swindler and, last but not least, a pornographer. He was famous throughout Europe, and so popular in France that his imprisonment for allegedly stealing a diamond necklace from Marie Antoinette fanned the flames of revolution ...The Count was so controversial that he became the central figure in both Goethe's Faust, Part One and Mozart's The Magic Flute.The Count's story is told through the eyes of seven of his contemporaries, including Casanova, Goethe and Catherine the Great.

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Page Count

349

Publisher

HarperPerennial

Published Date

ISBN 10

0732273986

ISBN 13

9780732273989

John Büsst

Bohemian artist and saviour of reef and rainforest

By: Iain McCalman

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John Büsst

Bohemian artist and saviour of reef and rainforest

By: Iain McCalman

A rich biography of artist-turned-environmental campaigner John Büsst. Known to his enemies as ‘The Bingil Bay Bastard’, John Büsst, a Bendigo-born Melbourne bohemian artist, moved to tropical Bedarra Island in North Queensland and underwent an extraordinary transformation to become one of Australia’s most successful conservationists. In the 1960s and early 70s Büsst led campaigns to protect two of Australia’s most important and endangered environments — saving lowland rainforests from destruction and the Great Barrier Reef from reckless resource mining for oil, gas, cement and fertiliser. A plan Büsst likened to ‘bulldozing the Taj Mahal to make road gravel’. Along the way Büsst obtained the active support of five current or future prime ministers — Holt, Whitlam, Gorton, Hawke and Fraser. This inspiring biography, from award-winning historian Iain McCalman, is a timely reminder that the passionate commitment of ordinary citizens is crucial to achieving truly transformative environmental change. ‘John Büsst’s love of beauty and reverence for science combined to leave two awesome, interconnected but still tragically vulnerable legacies: the conservation of both the North Queensland rainforests and the Great Barrier Reef. Iain McCalman, among the country’s finest historians, brings to life one man’s journey from art to activism, locating the roots of modern environmental consciousness in a highly creative and productive partnership of aesthetics, humanitarianism, science and politics.’ — Frank Bongiorno ‘In John Büsst, Iain McCalman turns his attention to the artist, architect, naturalist and environmental campaigner who helped save the Great Barrier Reef from destruction in the 1960s with hugely impressive results. Vivid, expansive and richly intelligent, it is both a tribute to a remarkable life and a fascinating and timely study of how an unlikely group of activists transformed the way Australians understand the environment.’ — James Bradley ‘Iain McCalman’s rich and incisive history of John Büsst’s resolute and brilliant fight to save the Great Barrier Reef affords us a desperately needed exemplar of what authentic love and commitment to the Earth, combined with persuasive strategy and formidable collaborations can do. The book is a shot in the arm for anyone who doubts our capacity to protect Earth’s others and a reminder that it is the wonderous nature of the Earth itself that makes ecological warriors of ordinary people.’ — Danielle Celermajer ‘This inspiring story of John Büsst’s life is as rich in character and charm as the reef and rainforest ecosystems he fought so hard to protect. It’s a captivating account of the battleground for Australian conservation, fought on the beaches and forests of North Queensland. Fabulous!’ — Danielle Clode ‘We are all in debt to John Büsst, pioneer defender of the environment. Here Iain McCalman brilliantly charts his life and his successful crusade to save Queensland’s reef and adjacent rainforest — one of the world’s great ecosystems.’ — Bill Gammage ‘Eye-opening and inspiring. The unforgettable story of one man’s struggle to save two of Australia’s most treasured world heritage environments — Queensland’s Wet Tropics rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.’ — Mark McKenna 'McCalman’s book is a fine homage to a dedicated life. It’s also a portrait of the kind of person who makes a difference. Busst was clever, charming, thoughtful and, perhaps above all, a good, strategic communicator.' — Rosemary Sorensen, Independent Australia

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Page Count

277

Publisher

NewSouth

Published Date

ISBN 10

1742239021

ISBN 13

9781742239026

The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro

Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason

By: Iain McCalman

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The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro

Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason

By: Iain McCalman

Biography of the eighteenth century quack, charlatan and murderer who was to the French Revolution what Rasputin was to the Russian. Guiseppe Blasamo was born in the mid-eighteenth century in the slums of Palerno, Sicily, he would rise from obscurity to become the legendary Count Alessandro di Cagliostoro, whose dangerous charm and reputed healing would make him the darling - and bane - of upper-crust Europe. Moving through the period between the Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution - a time when reason and superstition co-mingled in the minds of even the best educated - Cagliostro earned a reputation for dazzling kings, feeding the poor, healing the ill and, most conspicuously, relieving the careless rich of their money, He tangled with most of the major figures in Europe at that time, including Cassanova, Mozart, Goethe and Catherine the Great. Eventually a lifetime of political intrigue led him to become the key figure in The Diamond Necklace Affair, which many believe precipitated the French Revolution itself, and which would eventually lead to his own downfall and death while imprisoned half insane by the Inquisition.

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Page Count

294

Published Date

ISBN 10

0712623485

ISBN 13

9780712623483

The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro

The Greatest Enchanter of the Eighteenth Century

By: Iain McCalman

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The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro

The Greatest Enchanter of the Eighteenth Century

By: Iain McCalman

Guiseppe Balsamo, the Count of Cagliostro, was an 18th-century Sicilian who became a magician, mystic, healer, Freemason, swindler, and last, but not least, a pornographer. He was so controversial, he became a central figure in Faust and the Magic Flute. This work features his story that is told through the eyes of seven of his contemporaries.

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Page Count

352

Publisher

Fourth Estate

Published Date

ISBN 10

0732273978

ISBN 13

9780732273972

Barnaby Rudge

Tale of Two Cities ; Hard Times

By: Charles Dickens

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Barnaby Rudge

Tale of Two Cities ; Hard Times

By: Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens's first historical novel set during the anti-Catholic riots of 1780 is an unparalleled portrayal of the terror of a rampaging mob, seen through the eyes of the individuals swept up in the chaos. Those individuals include Emma, a Catholic, and Edward, a Protestant, whose forbidden love weaves through the heart of the story; and the simpleminded Barnaby, one of the riot leaders, whose fate is tied to a mysterious murder and whose beloved pet raven, Grip, embodies the mystical power of innocence. The story encompasses both the rarified aristocratic world and the volatile streets and nightmarish underbelly of London, which Dickens characteristically portrays in vivid, pulsating detail. But the real focus of the book is on the riots themselves, depicted with an extraordinary energy and redolent of the dangers, the mindlessness, and the possibilities both beneficial and brutal of the mob."--Publisher description.

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Page Count

632

Published Date

ISBN 10

1857152964

ISBN 13

9781857152968

Darwin's Armada

By: Iain McCalman

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Darwin's Armada

By: Iain McCalman

Charles Darwin, HMS Beagle, 1831-36 Sent to Cambridge to join the clergy, the young Darwin emerged with a passion for naturalism and an invitation to sail on a naval survey vessel to South America, New Zealand and Australia. That journey would change his life, and the course of modern science. Joseph Hooker, HMS Erebus, 1839-43 Inspired by Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, assistant-surgeon Hooker undertook his own dramatic voyage of exploration, from the Cook Islands to the Antarctic via the high society of Hobart. His botanical research added critical evidence to Darwin's developing ideas on evolution, and he became Darwin's closest ally. Thomas Huxley, HMS Rattlesnake, 1846-50 'Darwin's Bulldog' would become evolution's most effective champion against the clergy (coining the term agnostic'). As a brilliant, ascerbic young man, Huxley was determined to make his name through discoveries in marine biology in the Southern Hemisphere – but his most improbable discovery was that in Sydney he fell in love. Alfred Wallace, the Amazon and South-East Asia, 1848-66 The least celebrated but perhaps the most brilliant of the four. During his many years in remote jungles as a professional specimen collector, the largely self-educated Wallace arrived independently at a theory of evolution by natural selection. He sent his idea to Darwin, precipitating a dramatic moral crisis and the writing of On the Origin of Species. Darwin's Armanda is both a gripping adventure story and a brilliantly enlightening work of history, for the first time portraying the Darwinian revolution as a collective enterprise forged in Australasia. These four remarkable men did what one alone could not – combed the world for evidence of evolution by natural selection, and then fought tirelessly in the social and intellectual battle that followed its famous publication 150 years ago. Together they changed the world.

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Page Count

471

Publisher

Penguin Group Australia

Published Date

ISBN 10

1742285376

ISBN 13

9781742285375

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