Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life - Rilegato

Raby, Peter

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0691006954 ISBN 13: 9780691006956

Casa editrice: Princeton Univ Pr, 2001

Riassunto

In 1858, Alfred Russel Wallace, aged thirty-five, weak with malaria, isolated in the Spice Islands, wrote to Charles Darwin: he had, he said excitedly, worked out a theory of natural selection. Darwin was aghast--his work of decades was about to be scooped. Within two weeks, his outline and Wallace's paper were presented jointly in London. A year later, with Wallace still on the opposite side of the globe, Darwin publishedOn the Origin of Species.

This new biography of Wallace traces the development of one of the most remarkable scientific travelers, naturalists, and thinkers of the nineteenth century. With vigor and sensitivity, Peter Raby reveals his subject as a courageous, unconventional explorer and a man of exceptional humanity. He draws more extensively on Wallace's correspondence than has any previous biographer and offers a revealing yet balanced account of the relationship between Wallace and Darwin.

Wallace lacked Darwin's advantages. A largely self-educated native of Wales, he spent four years in the Amazon in his mid-twenties collecting specimens for museums and wealthy patrons, only to lose his finds in a shipboard fire in the mid-Atlantic. He vowed never to travel again. Yet two years later he was off to the East Indies on a vast eight-year trek; here he discovered countless species and identified the point of divide between Asian and Australian fauna, 'Wallace's Line.'

After his return, he plunged into numerous controversies and published regularly until his death at the age of ninety, in 1913. He penned a classic volume on his travels, founded the discipline of biogeography, promoted natural selection, and produced a distinctive account of mind and consciousness in man. Sensitive and self-effacing, he was an ardent socialist--and spiritualist. Wallace is one of the neglected giants of the history of science and ideas. This stirring biography--the first for many years--puts him back at center stage, where he belongs.

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Recensione:

"With this marvelously readable biography of Alfred Russel Wallace, Raby has rescued [this] forgotten pioneer from oblivion. . . . In capturing the cross-grained complexities of this exceptional collector of beetles and birds, Raby gives readers a fascinating specimen of the most mysterious and unpredictable species of all."--Booklist

"Raby's accomplished study is the first in some years and adds greater insight into this likeable underdog's personality."--Publishers Weekly

"Even by Victorian standards, Wallace was a titan of self-effacement. . . . If this well-researched and graceful biography doesn't solve the riddle of Wallace, it nicely conveys the riddle's many dimensions. . . . [Wallace was] a man, in short, who occasionally struck colleagues as a crackpot; and yet, in the end, a man who was in some ways more admirable than the much-admired Darwin."--Robert Wright, New York Times Book Review

"Wallace was the author of some 20 books and 700 other publications. . . . Raby has worked with these sources over several years and supplemented them with examinations of unpublished notebooks and letters. . . . He has produced a congenial account of Wallace's life, major interests, and activities for the general reader."--Gareth Nelson, Science

"Peter Raby's life of Wallace catches the charm, daring, and high- seriousness of the age, while scrupulously measuring Wallace's distinction as a man and a scientist."--Guy Davenport, New Criterion

"[It] provides a focused and balanced narrative of Wallace's life, in which his exotic travels are placed in the context of his eventful life story. . . .I would recommend this tastefully illustrated book to general readers as a good introduction to one of Britain's more charismatic and difficult figures of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."--Jane R. Camerini, Nature

"A well-researched, graceful biography."--New York Times Book Review

"A revealing look at a humble hero of science."--Library Journal

"An engaging account of Wallace's long, eventful, and extraordinarily productive life."--Richard Milner, Natural History

"This authoritative biography is an excellent and inspiring read."--Hannah Atkins, New Scientist

Contenuti:

Illustrations vii
Maps ix
Foreword and Acknowledgements x
1. Introduction 1
2. The Evolution of a Naturalist 6
3. Apprenticeship on the Amazon 34
4. Hunting the White Umbrella Bird 59
5. Planning the Next Expedition 83
6. The Land of the Orang-utan 100
7. Heading East 117
8. In Search of Paradise Birds 135
9. The Return of the Wanderer 163
10. Wallace Transformed 184
11. Man and Mind 200
12. The Big Trees 227
13. The Future of the Race 250
14. The Last Orchard 270
15. The Old Hero 285
Abbreviations 296
Notes 296
Sources and Selected Bibliography 320
Index 327

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Princeton Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0691006954
• ISBN 13: 9780691006956
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 340