Darwinism, War and History: The Debate Over the Biology of War from the 'Origin of Species' to the First World War

ISBN-13: 9780521466455 / Angielski / Miękka / 1994 / 320 str.

Paul Crook; D. P. Crook

Opis

This book challenges the received view that Darwinism generated essentially aggressive and warlike social values and pugnacious images of humankind. Paul Crook reconstructs the influential discourse of "peace biology," whose liberal vision was of a basically free humanity, not fettered by iron laws of biological necessity or governed by violent genes. By exploring a gamut of Darwinian readings of history and war, mainly in the English-speaking world prior to 1919, this study throws important new light on militarism, peace movements, the origins of World War I and British social thought.

Recenzje

"The principal strength of Crook's book is the careful, comparative textual analysis that characterizes Crook's treatment of the ideas he examines....this is first rate, old fashioned, intellectual history, which means it is both readable and comprehensible....this is a book that adds so much to our understanding of the origins of controversial, modern sociobiological thought." Richard A. Soloway, Comptes rendus

Spis treści

1. The Darwinian legacy; 2. The age of Spencer and Huxley; 3. Crisis in the West: the pre-war generation and the new biology; 4. 'The natural decline of warfare': anti-war evolutionism prior to 1914; 5. The Great War: man the fighting animal; 6. The survival of peace biology; 7. Naturalistic fallacies and noble ends; 8. Conclusion.