Charles Darwin - by A N Wilson (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A radical reappraisal of Charles Darwin from the bestselling author of Victoria: A Life.

With the publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin--hailed as the man who "discovered evolution"--was propelled into the pantheon of great scientific thinkers, alongside Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton. Eminent writer A. N. Wilson challenges this long-held assumption. Contextualizing Darwin and his ideas, he offers a groundbreaking critical look at this revered figure in modern science.

In this beautifully written, deeply erudite portrait, Wilson argues that Darwin was not an original scientific thinker, but a ruthless and determined self-promoter who did not credit the many great sages whose ideas he advanced in his book. Furthermore, Wilson contends that religion and Darwinism have much more in common than it would seem, for the acceptance of Darwin's theory involves a pretty significant leap of faith.

Armed with an extraordinary breadth of knowledge, Wilson explores how Darwin and his theory were very much a product of their place and time. The "Survival of the Fittest" was really the Survival of Middle Class families like the Darwins--members of a relatively new economic strata who benefited from the rising Industrial Revolution at the expense of the working classes. Following Darwin's theory, the wretched state of the poor was an outcome of nature, not the greed and neglect of the moneyed classes. In a paradigm-shifting conclusion, Wilson suggests that it remains to be seen, as this class dies out, whether the Darwinian idea will survive, or whether it, like other Victorian fads, will become a footnote in our intellectual history.

Brilliant, daring, and ambitious, Charles Darwin explores this legendary man as never before, and challenges us to reconsider our understanding of both Darwin and modern science itself.

From the Back Cover

Charles Darwin: The man who discovered evolution? The man who killed off God? Or a flawed man of his age, part genius, part ruthless careerist, who would not acknowledge his debts to other thinkers?

In this first single-volume biography of Charles Darwin in twenty-five years, A. N. Wilson, the acclaimed author of The Victorians and God's Funeral, goes in search of this celebrated but contradictory figure.

Darwin was described by his friend and champion Thomas Huxley as a symbol. But what did he symbolize? In Wilson's portrait, both sympathetic and critical, Darwin was two men. On the one hand, a brilliant naturalist, a patient and precise collector and curator who greatly expanded the possibilities of taxonomy and geology. On the other hand, a seemingly diffident man who appeared gentle and even lazy but hid a burning ambition to be a universal genius: he longed to have a theory that explained everything.

But was Darwin's 1859 masterwork, On the Origin of Species, really what it seemed, a work about natural history? Or was it in fact a consolation myth for the Victorian middle classes, reassuring them that selfishness and indifference to the poor were part of nature's grand plan?

Charles Darwin is a radical reappraisal of one of the great Victorians, a book that isn't afraid to challenge Darwinian orthodoxy while bringing us closer to the man, his revolutionary ideas, and the wider Victorian age.

Review Quotes

"Though Darwin's all-encompassing theory is now widely regarded as paradigmatic science, Wilson provocatively considers it a quasi-religious credo--like Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto--ultimately doing more to shape political attitudes than to advance scientific understanding.... Sure to spark debate." - Booklist (starred review)
"The prolific novelist and biographer probes the character and controversies of Charles Darwin's life and the controversial theory that turned the world on its head.... An illuminating new biography of a legendary figure in the scientific world whose legacy continues to draw reappraisals." - Kirkus