From Victorian voyages to vanishing maps: Books in brief

Nature News · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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BOOK REVIEW 23 February 2026 Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks. By Andrew Robinson0 Andrew Robinson Andrew Robinson is a writer based in London and author of Earthshock (1993), The Story of Measurement (2007) and Einstein in Oxford (2024). The Wake of HMS ChallengerGillen D’Arcy Wood Princeton Univ. Press (2025)Similar to the global voyage of naturalist Charles Darwin on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s, HMS Challenger’s 1872–76 oceanographic expedition left a vast scientific legacy — although one less familiar than its predecessor’s. The HMS Challenger’s crew members are “long gone, but the ship’s imprint is still on the world’s oceans”, concludes Gillen D’Arcy Wood, an environmental historian. Wood’s book revives the importance of the expedition’s “floating marine laboratory” and reveals its relevance to the challenges the oceans face today.Climate by ProxyMelissa Charenko Univ. Chicago Press (2025)“Climate defies easy definition,” writes historian Melissa Charenko in her complex yet accessible book on the scientific study of the climate during the twentieth century. This research relied on climate proxies, which fall into two types. Physical proxies include fossilized pollen, tree rings and stalagmites. Meanwhile, historical records such as diaries, photographs and ship logs can contain information about cloud cover and harvest dates. Today’s challenge, Charenko argues, is to combine data from many proxies using modern computers.A Little History of the EarthJamie Woodward Yale Univ. Press (2025)One of the many vivid details in geographer Jamie Woodward’s brief history of Earth is palaeontologist Stephen Gould’s demonstration of the planet’s 4.5-billion-year lifespan during his lectures. Using his outstretched arm, Gould’s shoulder marks Earth’s formation, life appears at the elbow and the last millimetre of his middle fingernail represents the history of humans. Even so, Woodward’s lively book devotes about one-quarter of its space to humans, while also addressing the “five great spheres of the Earth system”.Healthy to 100Ken Stern PublicAffairs (2025) Nature 650, 824 (2026) doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00567-z Competing Interests The author declares no competing interests. Subjects Latest on: Arts Culture Mid-cycle update Futures 18 FEB 26 18,000,000 minutes Futures 11 FEB 26 Eviction notice Futures 04 FEB 26 Mid-cycle update Futures 18 FEB 26 18,000,000 minutes Futures 11 FEB 26 Eviction notice Futures 04 FEB 26