Darwin

Librarian’s note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

The impact of Charles Darwin’s work on Western civilization has been broad and deep. As much as anyone in the modern era, he changed human thought, and his influence is still felt in virtually all aspects of our lives. This new edition, larger and more varied than the previous ones, includes more of Darwin’s own work and also presents the most recent research and scholarship on all aspects of Darwin’s legacy. The biological sciences, as well as social thought, philosophy, ethics, religion, and literature, have all been shaped and reshaped by evolutionary concepts.

Excerpts from the most important books and articles of recent years confirm this Darwinian heritage. New work by Richard Dawkins, Edward O. Wilson, Kevin Padian, Eugene C. Scott, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Michael Ruse, Frans de Waal, Noretta Koertge, George C. Williams, George Levine, Stephen Jay Gould, Gillian Beer, Ernst Mayr, and many others illuminates this exciting intellectual history. A wide-ranging new introduction by the editor provides context and coherence to this rich body of engaging material, much of which will be shaping human thought well into the new century.

This collection of Darwin’s writing, those of his critics and those of his intellectual descendants, includes:
– The Voyage of the Beagle (1845): Ch. I, XVII
– On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; And on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection (1858): Ch. I-II
– An Historical Sketch of the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species Previously to the Publication of this Work (1861) The Origin of Species (1859): Introduction, Ch. I-IV, VI, IX, XIII-XIV
– The Descent of Man (1871): Introduction, Ch. I-III, VI, VIII, XIX-XXI