Life's Splendid Drama: Evolutionary Biology and the Reconstruction of Life's Ancestry, 1860-1940 Hardcover - 1996 - 1st Edition
by Peter J. Bowler
From the rear cover
In 1928, paleontologist William Diller Matthew wrote, "The story of life on earth is a splendid drama". This story has captivated generations of biologists, including those working in the years immediately following publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. Yet histories of the Darwinian revolution have ignored the main nineteenth-century application of evolution: the attempt to reconstruct the history of life on earth. Now Peter J. Bowler seeks to recover some of this lost history in Life's Splendid Drama, the definitive account of evolutionary morphology and its relationships with paleontology and biogeography. As Bowler tracks major scientific debates over the emergence of the vertebrates, the origins of the main types of living animals, and the rise and extinction of groups such as the dinosaurs, his richly detailed accounts bring to light complex interactions among specialists in various fields of biology. Charting the role of Darwin's ideas and the degree and direction of their influence, Bowler shows how these interactions constituted an interdisciplinary program with a focus on reconstructing the past rather than on mechanisms of evolutionary change. Bowler also examines the socially laden metaphors used by early biologists to describe the history of life, and argues that such usage influenced the development of modern evolutionism by exploiting Darwinian principles outside the context of the genetical theory of natural selection. Much of the rhetoric of "social Darwinism" may thus have been derived not directly from natural selection theory but from the application of Darwinian principles to the rise and fall of different animal groups over time. Bowler's magisterialwork will appeal to historians of science and ideas and also to biologists - particularly those working in evolutionary biology, paleontology, and systematicsinterested in the roots of their disciplines, as well as to the many readers fascinated by Darwin and his influence.
Details
- Title Life's Splendid Drama: Evolutionary Biology and the Reconstruction of Life's Ancestry, 1860-1940
- Author Peter J. Bowler
- Binding Hardcover
- Edition number 1st
- Edition 1
- Pages 540
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher University of Chicago Press, Chicago
- Date 1996-11
- Illustrated Yes
- Features Bibliography, Illustrated, Index
- ISBN 9780226069210 / 0226069214
- Weight 2.04 lbs (0.93 kg)
- Dimensions 9.89 x 6.33 x 1.38 in (25.12 x 16.08 x 3.51 cm)
- Library of Congress subjects Evolution (Biology) - History, Biology - History
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 95025394
- Dewey Decimal Code 575.009
Media reviews
Citations
- Library Journal, 11/15/1996, Page 85
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