How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution
by Adrian Desmond & James Moore
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Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2009
448 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
Mining untapped sources, the authors of an acclaimed biography of Darwin offer an astonishing new portrait of the scientific icon.
In Darwin's Sacred Cause, Adrian Desmond and James Moore restore the missing moral core of Darwin's evolutionary universe, providing a completely new account of how he came to his shattering theories about human origins.
Desmond and Moore's biography of Darwin was described by Stephen Jay Gould as "unquestionably the finest . . . ever written" about him. In their new book, timed to coincide with the worldwide Darwin bicentenary celebrations,Desmond and Moore provide a major reexamination of Darwin's life and work.Drawing on a wealth of fresh manuscripts, unpublished letters, notebooks, diaries, and ships' logs, they argue that the driving force behind Darwin's theory of evolution was not simply his love of truth or personal ambition—it was his fierce hatred of slavery.Darwin's abolitionism had deep roots in his mother's family, and it was reinforced by his voyage on the Beagle as well as by events in America—from the Civil War to the arrival of scientific racism at Harvard.
"Starred Review. [T]his is the rare book that mines old ground and finds new treasure." - Publishers Weekly.
"Stimulating, in-depth picture of 19th-century scientific thinking and racial attitudes." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Well researched, likely to be controversial (some will call it revisionist history), this book provides another enlightening glimpse into a life of seemingly infinite complexity." - Library Journal.
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Adrian Desmond and James Moore are the authors of a dozen books between them on Darwin and evolution. Their acclaimed Darwin (1991) won many awards, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Comisso Grand Prize in Italy, and the Watson Davis Prize from the History of Science Society.
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