Book Review

Comparative/World

While the scholarship on Darwinism is large, most attention has been devoted to Charles Darwin and his circle, especially the prominent scientists and science-watchers of Britain, Western Europe, and the Northeast of the United States. This impressive volume adds a wealth of fresh research and new insights to our understanding of the reception of Darwinism outside the mainstream. The move it makes away from the cultural center is both geographic and demographic: about half of the book deals with Darwinian thoughts in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the American South, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, with some comparisons to the American Northeast; the rest of the book evaluates Roman Catholic, Jewish, African-American, and women's responses to Darwinism. Ironically, in light of the bold claims for decentering by place, almost all the material on these cultural outsiders is derived from the United States.	1
The book grew from a self-conscious attempt to gather scholarly attention to Darwin on the margins—or at least on the English-speaking margins. Almost all the essays were first delivered as papers at the conference "Responding to Darwin: New Perspectives on the Darwinian Revolution," which was held in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1994. The South Pacific setting was perhaps the spur to encourage thinking about how widely distant locations can influence thinking, and to facilitate scholarly bridge building among the works of researchers around the world and in different cultural groups. The volume is a good response to an odd segmentation that has emerged tacitly in the last generation or two. The attention to difference has encouraged a focus on non-elite groups, and methodologically a turn away from "elite" topics such as the history of science. This book achieves innovation by cutting across these lines: it assesses questions of scientific inquiry and impact in the provinces and among cultural outsiders.	2
The one addition to the conference proceedings is written in very much the same spirit. David Livingstone's evaluation of the comparative reception of Darwinism in Princeton, Belfast, and Edinburgh is a kind of manifesto for the importance of place and for the fine grains of intellectual diversity that can be discovered when looking in different places. The setting, or more particularly the cultural contexts in each place, established the tone for three very different styles of response to Darwinism during the late nineteenth century. A peaceful coexistence characterized the relations of science and religion in Edinburgh; a fierce combative tone dominated in Belfast, with scientific naturalists and defensive Presbyterian divines squaring off against each other; and James McCosh led the desire for accommodation at Princeton, with acceptance of physical evolution and religious explanations for the human soul.	3
The article by Jon Roberts has some similarities to Livingstone's. It is also framed by theoretical concerns: in this case, by questions about motivation for intellectuals' ideologies and convictions. In addition, Roberts's close scrutiny of familiar territory undercuts broad generalizations. He finds few consistent patterns from upbringing or social status to explain commentators' paths toward liberal or conservative positions on Darwinism. For all the critique of pattern-making in both essays, both conclude with helpful generalizations. For example, Roberts notes that the two camps sought authoritative guides but differed in trusting the Bible's "infallible revelation" or the "sustained use of the scientific method" (p. 162).	. . .