A tour of the late eighteenth century English Enlightenment in the company of Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles, who (aside from his poetry and other scientific endeavours) was expounding theories of evolution years before the birth of his more famous grandson. Erasmus Darwin [...] subverts the genre, along the way making it the most enjoyable relatively heavy-duty history of science book I've ever read ... this is a wonderful way to make the process of exploring the history of science come alive.