Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe by Eve-Marie Engels and
Thomas F. Glick
Review by: Jan Baedke
Source: Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für allgemeine
Wissenschaftstheorie , November 2011, Vol. 42, No. 2 (November 2011), pp. 411-413
Published by: Springer

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41478316

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J Gen Philos Sci (2011) 42:411-413
DOI 10.1007/S10838-01 1-9159-8

BOOK REVIEW

Eve-Marie Engels and Thomas F. Glick (Eds):

The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe
Continuum, London/New York, 2008, 2 vols, 736 pp, £200.00
ISBN 978-0-826-45833-9

Jan Baedke

Published online: 20 August 2011

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The reception of Charles Darwin's work in England, especially of The Origin of Species in
1 859, started immediately. Despite its heavy impact on the life sciences in general and the
understanding of phylogenetic alternations of populations by natural selection over time in
particular it also aroused instant reactions and heated discussions over anthropologic and
theological issues on the British Islands.
Throughout the European continent, the reception of Darwin's theory differed from
country to country and between the disciplines, being influenced by a variety of philo-
sophical and theological assumptions, disciplinary epistemological and methodological
criteria, respective publication organs and scientific institutions, further political, historical
and cultural contexts and also by Darwin's own correspondence. With respect to these
factors, The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe aims to provide a comprehensive
overview of how Darwin's work was received in each country in a characteristic manner.
This two- volume work comprehends 29 national case studies with a greater institutional or
disciplinary focus (e.g. on morphology, anthropology and paleontology) in those countries
where there has already been done several substantial reception studies (i.e. Germany,
Spain, and France). It is edited by Eve-Marie Engels, Professor of Ethics in the Life
Sciences at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and Thomas F. Glick, Professor of
History at Boston University, USA. Both editors are well known for their essential pre-
liminary work in the study of the reception of Darwin: among others Thomas F. Glick was
the editor of the benchmark The Comparative Reception of Darwinism (Glick 1988) and
Eve-Marie Engels edited Die Rezeption von Evolutionstheorien im 19. Jahrhundert ( The
Reception of Theories of Evolution in the nineteenth Century) (Engels 1995).
The huge overall amount of essays and contributions in this work precludes reviewing
and discussing all of them in detail. Thus, I will rather provide the reader with a general
overview and a brief evaluation of the content of this book.
The two- volume Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe is divided into six parts:
volume 1 focuses on the Darwinian revolution in Great Britain and Ireland (part I) and on
the reception of Darwin in north-west Europe (part II) and in north-east and central Europe

J. Baedke (El)
Institut für Philosophie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44801 Bochum, Germany
e-mail: jan.baedke@rub.de

â Springer

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 412 J. Baedke

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The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe 413

As this brief and general survey of the two volu

topics in The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe
intention to represent the full complexity of the re
topics and case studies discussed in this edition is t
the reception of Darwin in Europe has been signif
which so far had little or none consideration (e.g.
Estonia, Catalonia, Poland, etc.). These new nation
start' and guideline for future research on not yet c
countries lacks contributions on some south and
Portugal, Greece), but this fact carries minor weig
Hungary and Romania that break new ground. In
Lamarckinian ideas in theories of evolution (e.g. Jab
articles dealing with (neo-)Lamarckism throw a ligh
Many contributions also illustrate the guiding rol
interpretation of Darwin's ideas. In this context the
translations provides an excellent tool to support th
The list of contributors contains many outstandin
general and the reception of Darwin in particula
Gregorio, Eduard Kolchinksi, Patrick Tort, etc.).
All in all, The Reception of Charles Darwin in Euro
of the history and philosophy of biology. Neverth
interested in the exciting relationship between Darw
religion, society and politics can learn a lot from th
represents a benchmark of the European research o
state of the art and delivers inspiring new topics
research.

References

Engels, E.-M. (1995). Die Rezeption von Evolutionstheorien im 19. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Glick, T. F. (1988). The comparative reception of Darwinism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1st edn
1974.

Jabloňka, E., & Lamb, M. J. (2005). Evolution in four dimensions: Genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and
symbolic variation in the history of life. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Ô Springer

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