| Description |
1 online resource (451 pages) : illustrations |
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text file |
| Contents |
Introduction: The politics of evolution -- Every cheating tradesman: the political economy of natural selection -- A very social darwinist: Herbert Spencer's Lamarckian radicalism -- A liberal descent: Charles Darwin and the evolution of ethics -- Liberals and socialists: the politics of evolution in Victorian England -- Malthus or mutualism?: Huxley, Kropotkin, and the moral meaning of Darwinism -- Of mice and men: Malthus, Weismann, and the future of socialism -- Fear of falling: evolutionary degeneration and the politics of panmixia -- Conclusion: Political descent: anticipations of the Twentieth Century and beyond -- Afterword: Engaging the present. |
| Summary |
Historians of science have long noted the influence of the nineteenth-century political economist Thomas Robert Malthus on Charles Darwin. In a bold move, Piers J. Hale contends that this focus on Malthus and his effect on Darwin's evolutionary thought neglects a strong anti-Malthusian tradition in English intellectual life, one that not only predated the 1859 publication of the Origin of Species but also persisted throughout the Victorian period until World War I. Political Descent reveals that two evolutionary and political traditions developed in England in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act: one Malthusian, the other decidedly anti-Malthusian and owing much to the ideas of the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck. These two traditions, Hale shows, developed in a context of mutual hostility, debate, and refutation. Participants disagreed not only about evolutionary processes but also on broader questions regarding the kind of creature our evolution had made us and in what kind of society we ought therefore to live. Significantly, and in spite of Darwin's acknowledgement that natural selection was "the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms," both sides of the debate claimed to be the more correctly "Darwinian." By exploring the full spectrum of scientific and political issues at stake, Political Descent offers a novel approach to the relationship between evolution and political thought in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-423) and index. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert), 1766-1834 -- Influence.
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Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert), 1766-1834. |
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Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de, 1744-1829 -- Influence.
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Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de, 1744-1829. |
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Social evolution -- Political aspects.
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Social evolution. |
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Evolution (Biology) and the social sciences -- England -- History -- 19th century.
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Evolution (Biology) and the social sciences. |
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England. |
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History. |
| Chronological Term |
19th century |
| Subject |
Political science -- England -- History -- 19th century.
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Political science. |
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Social Darwinism -- Political aspects.
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Social Darwinism. |
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Evolution (Biology) -- Political aspects.
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Evolution (Biology) |
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Malthusianism -- Political aspects.
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Malthusianism. |
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Mutualism -- England -- History -- 19th century.
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Mutualism. |
| Chronological Term |
1800-1899 |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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History.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Hale, Piers J. Political Descent : Malthus, Mutualism, and the Politics of Evolution in Victorian England. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, ©2014 9780226108490 |
| ISBN |
9780226108520 (e-book) |
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022610852X (e-book) |
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9780226108490 (cloth) |
| Standard No. |
40023892995 |
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