Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender [Hardcover]

Ronald L. Numbers (Editor), John Stenhouse (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521620716 | ISBN-13: 978-0521620710 | Publication Date: December 28, 1999 | Edition: 1

This innovative collection of original essays focuses on the ways in which geography, gender, race, and religion influenced the reception of Darwinism in the English-speaking world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The contributions to this volume collectively illustrate the importance of local social, physical, and religious arrangements, while revealing that neither distance from Darwin's home at Down nor size of community greatly influenced how various regions responded to Darwinism. Essays spanning the world from Great Britain and North America to Australia and New Zealand explore the various meanings for Darwinism in these widely separated locales, while other chapters focus on the difference it made in the debates over evolution.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Region, and Gender is one of the most important books in recent years on and around Darwinism. ...this volume is without competitor." Victorian Studies

"When it would seem impossible to introduce new factors into our understanding of Darwinism, these essays do just that. In remarkably lively and unexpected ways, they demonstrate the varying responses to Darwin's thought arising from diverse geographic, ethnic, and religious communities. They provide new paths to understanding Darwinism as the debate over those ideas enters the new century." Frank M. Turner,Yale University

"This is just the book we need for exploring the controversial reception--and rejection--of Darwinism across the globe. The authors show how there never was a simple or static Darwin: that his ideas changed as much as those of his famous defenders, and his exciting Origin of Species inspired very different responses in different places. These leading scholars take us far into the history of diverse cultures and different social groupings, ranging from Canada to the American South, from Englishwomen to blacks, Roman Catholics, and Protestant Irish, looking at the views of local communities and revealing the defining features of heated Darwin debates as they were experienced by real people, in real places." British Journal for the History of Science

"...this is a careful, rigorous, and valuable resource." Religious Studies Review

Book Description

The innovative collection of original essays focuses on the ways in which geography, gender, race, and religion influenced the reception of Darwinism in the English-speaking world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The contributions to this volume collectively illustrate the importance of local social, physical, and religious arrangements, while showing that neither distance from Darwin's home at Down nor size of community greatly influenced how various regions responded to Darwinism. Essays spanning the world from Great Britain and North America to Australia and New Zealand explore the various meanings for Darwinism in these widely separated locales, while other chapters focus on the difference it made in the debates over evolution.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (December 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521620716
• ISBN-13: 978-0521620710
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,165,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Disseminating Darwinism, June 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender (Hardcover)

A thoroughly engaging and informative read. Numbers and Stenhouse have compiled papers that challenge the conception that vervent religious beliefs are incompatable with evolutionary thinking. A particularly brilliant essay on the impact of evolutionary thought on early feminists clearly illustrates the main point of the book: evolutionary logic was used to justify many different (and sometimes antithetical) political positions. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of evolution!