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

by Ronald L. Numbers, John Stenhouse

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521620710
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/28/1999
Pages:	314
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.87(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; Acknowledgments; 1. Science, region, and religion: the reception of Darwinism in Princeton, Belfast, and Edinburgh David N. Livingstone; 2. Darwin Down Under: science, religion, and evolution in Australia Barry W. Butcher; 3. Darwinism in New Zealand, 1859–1900 John Stenhouse; 4. Environment, culture, and the reception of Darwin in Canada, 1859–1909 Suzanne Zeller; 5. Darwinism in the American South Ronald L. Numbers and Lester D. Stephens; 6. Darwinism, American Protestant thinkers, and the puzzle of motivation Jon H. Roberts; 7. Exposing Darwin's 'hidden agenda': Roman Catholic responses to evolution, 1875–1925 R. Scott Appleby; 8. American Jewish Responses to Darwin and Evolutionary theories, 1860–1890 Marc Swetlitz; 9. Black responses to Darwinism, 1859–1915 Eric D. Anderson; 10. 'The irrepressible woman question': women's responses to evolutionary ideology Sally Gregory Kohlstedt and Mark R. Jorgensen.

Editorial Reviews

"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

"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 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

From the Publisher