In The Prince of Evolution, Lee Alan Dugatkin introduces the reader to Russian Prince Peter Kropotkin -- one of the world’s first international celebrities. In England Kropotkin was known as a brilliant scientist, famous for his work on animal and human cooperation, but Kropotkin’s fame in continental Europe centered more on his role as a founder of anarchism. In the United States, he pursued both passions. Tens of thousands of people followed Prince Peter during two speaking tours that took him around America. Kropotkin’s path to fame was labyrinthine, with asides in prisons, breathtaking 50,000-mile journeys through Siberia, and banishment from most respectable Western countries of the day. In Russia, he went from being Czar Alexander II’s favored teenage page, to a young man enamored with the theory of evolution, to a convicted felon and jail-breaker, eventually being chased halfway around the world by the Russian secret police. While in jail, and while on the run when he was enlightening and entertaining huge crowds, Kropotkin found the energy to write books on a dazzling array of topics: evolution and cooperation, ethics, anarchism, socialism and communism, penal systems, and the coming industrial revolution in the East to name a few. Though seemingly disparate topics, a common thread--Kropotkin’s scientific law of mutual aid, which guided the evolution of all life on earth--tied these works together. Kropotkin was not only the first person to clearly demonstrate that cooperation was important among animals, he was the first to forcefully argue that understanding cooperation in animals would shed light on human cooperation, and, indeed might permit science to help save our species from destroying itself. His overarching goal was to understand cooperation in nature, so that he could promote cooperation in humans. Just like in the animals he watched for five years in Siberia, Kropotkin saw human cooperation as ultimately being driven not by government, but by groups of individuals spontaneously uniting to do good, even when they have to pay a cost to help. In The Prince of Evolution, Lee Alan Dugatkin will make the reader stop and take pause to consider what this one remarkable man did to try and make the world a more cooperative place.
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About the Author
Dr. Lee Alan Dugatkin is an evolutionary biologist and historian of science and a professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Department of Biology at the University of Louisville. He is the author of many books including Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose: Natural History in Early America (The University of Chicago Press, 2009), The Altruism Equation (Princeton University Press), and Cheating Monkeys and Citizen Bees (Free Press, 1999). His books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, German and Spanish. Dr. Dugatkin is an a contributor to Scientific American and The New Scientist and has presented public talks on his books and research at PopTech!, The Idea Festival, The American Museum of Natural History, The Smithsonian Institute and many other venues. His work has garnered full-length articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and dozens of other newspapers, magazines and journals across the world. Dr. Dugatkin has also spoken about his books and research at over seventy-five major universities including Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Oxford University, The University of Copenhagen, Cornell, The University of Chicago, The London School of Economics, and Cambridge University.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Lee Dugatkin's _Prince of Evolution_ is a compelling biography of the life of Peter Kropotkin, the Russian anarchist, founder of 'Freedom Press' publishing house in London and author of the series of essays that were later brought together as _Mutual Aid. A Factor in Evolution_(1902). This book is 'read-in-an-afternoon' short, coming in at less than 100 pages, and so the story is necessarily selective, but for all this it is a must read. Anarchists will find a detailed consideration of Kropotkin's notable scientific achievements, and historians of other political persuasions might also be surprised at the extent of Kropotkin's scientific achievements. Biologists will also glean some history of what is now termed the levels of selection debate (whether natural selection selects the gene, the individual, or the group), giving more detail on Kropotkin's story than either Mark Borrello included in his brilliant _Evolutionary Restraints_ (2010) or Oren Harmann had time for in his compelling story of George Price, _The Price of Altruism_ (2010).
From chapter four onwards Dugatkin goes into some detail to explain the origins, influences and implications of Kropotkin's biological theory of mutualism, not only in biology but in politics--the two were inseparable in the context of the nineteenth-century evolution debates. In stark contrast to the liberal-individualist version of Darwinian evolution put forward by 'Darwin's Bulldog', T.H. Huxley, Kropotkin argued that ethical regard for others of the same species was deep-seated. Its origins lay in the evolutionary strategy of mutual aid, the groups that contained organisms that cooperated tended to survive and multiply where those that were made up predominantly of selfish individualists tended not to. Although Dugatkin does not say so, Kropotkin was, with only a few differences, actually echoing the views that Darwin had already laid out in his _Descent of Man_ (1871), and made it clear that he thought himself a better Darwinian than Huxley on account of it.
In sum, Prince of Evolution is short, readable, and on the money - ($3.99 for Kindle and less than $13.00 for the print-to-order paperback?!). Dugatkin is a biologist, with an undergraduate degree in history. This shows: the science is foregrounded,--a bonus, as it takes a very distant back seat in most other biographies of Kropotkin, and it is eminently readable. Professional historians of science could learn a thing or two from Dugatkin, while there is clearly much left out (the teasing fact that it was Kropotkin who translated Spencer into Russian is pointed out, but in a sentence), he writes with the ability to make history exciting and accessible to undergraduates. I have students of my own who wax lyrical about this book--and who want to read more. What more can you ask?
From chapter four onwards Dugatkin goes into some detail to explain the origins, influences and implications of Kropotkin's biological theory of mutualism, not only in biology but in politics--the two were inseparable in the context of the nineteenth-century evolution debates. In stark contrast to the liberal-individualist version of Darwinian evolution put forward by 'Darwin's Bulldog', T.H. Huxley, Kropotkin argued that ethical regard for others of the same species was deep-seated. Its origins lay in the evolutionary strategy of mutual aid, the groups that contained organisms that cooperated tended to survive and multiply where those that were made up predominantly of selfish individualists tended not to. Although Dugatkin does not say so, Kropotkin was, with only a few differences, actually echoing the views that Darwin had already laid out in his _Descent of Man_ (1871), and made it clear that he thought himself a better Darwinian than Huxley on account of it.
In sum, Prince of Evolution is short, readable, and on the money - ($3.99 for Kindle and less than $13.00 for the print-to-order paperback?!). Dugatkin is a biologist, with an undergraduate degree in history. This shows: the science is foregrounded,--a bonus, as it takes a very distant back seat in most other biographies of Kropotkin, and it is eminently readable. Professional historians of science could learn a thing or two from Dugatkin, while there is clearly much left out (the teasing fact that it was Kropotkin who translated Spencer into Russian is pointed out, but in a sentence), he writes with the ability to make history exciting and accessible to undergraduates. I have students of my own who wax lyrical about this book--and who want to read more. What more can you ask?
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Paul J. Zak
Format:Paperback
In this lavishly written book, Lee Dugatkin resurrects the story of Prince Kropotkin, whose life and studies profoundly questioned Victorian science and society. Kropotkin showed that animals and humans self-organize into cooperative structures without God or government. Almost without realizing it, Kropotkin discovered the biological foundation for human liberty. --Paul Zak, Ph.D., Director, Center for Neuroeconomics Studies, Claremont Graduate University
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By John P. Dunn
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Dugatkin's interest in Kropotkin centers around his - Kropotkin's - challenge to Thomas Henry Huxley's version of Darwin's theory: "nature red in tooth and claw." Based on his time working in Siberia as a geographer, Kropotkin came to believe that species survived not through competition but through mutual aid. This experience, as well as his growing distaste for Czarist policies and politics, convinced him that anarchism - ie, local cooperation and mutual assistance was the fundamental species impulse, both in humans and in other species. Dugatkin's is essentially a historical presentation, so he spends little time - too little, in my view - on how Kropotkin's views have weathered modern scientific investigation. Dugatkin himself is a biologist, focused on animal behavior. I think I will have to track down some of his other work to see if he measures Kropotkin's contributions against current research.
It is well-written and I would recommend it to anyone interested in Kropotkin's life and thought. If you are not familiar with Kropotkin, you may want to supplement this with Woodcock's THE ANARCHIST PRINCE.
It is well-written and I would recommend it to anyone interested in Kropotkin's life and thought. If you are not familiar with Kropotkin, you may want to supplement this with Woodcock's THE ANARCHIST PRINCE.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, short biography of Kropotkin.
This is simple biography of Peter Kropotkin. Dugatkin describes well Kropotkin's political philosophy and his contributions to science. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Matthew Egbring
4.0 out of 5 stars
Prince of Anarachy
This is a good introduction and overview to the life and work of Peter Kropotkin. This book is easy to read with short chapters. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Ramon Thomas
