Rebel Giants

February 12, 2009, will mark the two hundredth anniversary of the births of the most extraordinary and influential men in recent history--Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. While the fact that these two men were born on the same day in the same year might seem to be a coincidence of interest only to astrologers, further investigation reveals many important parallels in their lives. David Contosta points out that despite obvious differences between the two men--one born to a poorly educated, impoverished family on the American frontier, the other to a wealthy and prominent English family; one largely self-taught, the other with a degree from Cambridge; one a politician seeking the crowd's approval, the other a reclusive scientist -- there are striking similarities between these seemingly disparate individuals -- from book jacket.