front cover of The Darwinian Revolution
The Darwinian Revolution
Science Red in Tooth and Claw
Michael Ruse
University of Chicago Press, 1999
Originally published in 1979, The Darwinian Revolution was the first comprehensive and readable synthesis of the history of evolutionary thought. Though the years since have seen an enormous flowering of research on Darwin and other nineteenth-century scientists concerned with evolution, as well as the larger social and cultural responses to their work, The Darwinian Revolution remains remarkably current and stimulating.

For this edition Michael Ruse has written a new afterword that takes into account the research published since his book's first appearance.

"It is difficult to believe that yet another book on Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution could add anything new or contain any surprises. Ruse's book is an exception on all counts. Darwin scholars and the general reader alike can learn from it."—David L. Hull, Nature

"No other account of the Darwinian Revolution provides so detailed and sympathetic an account of the framework within which the scientific debates took place."—Peter J. Bowler, Canadian Journal of History

"A useful and highly readable synthesis. . .skillfully organized and written with verve, imagination, and welcome touches of humor."—John C. Greene, Science
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front cover of Imagining the Darwinian Revolution
Imagining the Darwinian Revolution
Historical Narratives of Evolution from the Nineteenth Century to the Present
Ian Hesketh
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022

This volume considers the relationship between the development of evolution and its historical representations by focusing on the so-called Darwinian Revolution. The very idea of the Darwinian Revolution is a historical construct devised to help explain the changing scientific and cultural landscape that was ushered in by Charles Darwin’s singular contribution to natural science. And yet, since at least the 1980s, science historians have moved away from traditional “great man” narratives to focus on the collective role that previously neglected figures have played in formative debates of evolutionary theory. Darwin, they argue, was not the driving force behind the popularization of evolution in the nineteenth century. This volume moves the conversation forward by bringing Darwin back into the frame, recognizing that while he was not the only important evolutionist, his name and image came to signify evolution itself, both in the popular imagination as well as in the work and writings of other evolutionists. Together, contributors explore how the history of evolution has been interpreted, deployed, and exploited to fashion the science behind our changing understandings of evolution from the nineteenth century to the present.

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