Darwin in Russian Thought

Darwin in Russian Thought
Author: Alexander Vucinich
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2023-04-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0520331249

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

Darwin in Russian Thought

Darwin in Russian Thought
Author: Alexander Vucinich
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 480
Release: 1988-01-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780520062832

Darwin in Russian Thought represents the first comprehensive and systematic study of Charles Darwin's influence on Russian thought from the early 1860s to the October Revolution. While concentrating on the role of Darwin's theory in the development of Russian science and philosophy, Vucinich also explores the dominant ideological and sociological interpretations of evolutionary thought, providing a deft analysis of the views held by the leaders of Russian nihilism, populism, anarchism, and marxism. Darwin's thinking profoundly influenced intellectual discourse in Russia: it effected the emergence of "theoretical theology," a modern effort to provide theological responses to the revolutionary changes in the natural sciences, contributed to the evolution of a modern scientific community, and spurred the rapidly growing concern with the epistemological and ethical foundations of science in general. Scholarly battles were waged among the critics of Darwin--Karl von Baer, Nikolai Iakovlevich Danilevskii and Sergei Ivanovich Korzhinskii, and others--and the defenders of the faith. Vucinich is able to delineate the distinctive national characteristics of Russian Darwinism: the strong influence of Lamarckian thought, the delayed recognition of the contributions of genetics, the near-universal rejection of Social Darwinism, the early anticipation of the triumph of "evolutionary synthesis," and the heavy concentration on the social and moral aspects of evolutionary thought. Vividly argued and rich in detail, Darwin in Russian Thought provides a unique glimpse into the Russian psyche. Darwin in Russian Thought represents the first comprehensive and systematic study of Charles Darwin's influence on Russian thought from the early 1860s to the October Revolution. While concentrating on the role of Darwin's theory in the development of Russian science and philosophy, Vucinich also explores the dominant ideological and sociological interpretations of evolutionary thought, providing a deft analysis of the views held by the leaders of Russian nihilism, populism, anarchism, and marxism. Darwin's thinking profoundly influenced intellectual discourse in Russia: it effected the emergence of "theoretical theology," a modern effort to provide theological responses to the revolutionary changes in the natural sciences, contributed to the evolution of a modern scientific community, and spurred the rapidly growing concern with the epistemological and ethical foundations of science in general. Scholarly battles were waged among the critics of Darwin--Karl von Baer, Nikolai Iakovlevich Danilevskii and Sergei Ivanovich Korzhinskii, and others--and the defenders of the faith. Vucinich is able to delineate the distinctive national characteristics of Russian Darwinism: the strong influence of Lamarckian thought, the delayed recognition of the contributions of genetics, the near-universal rejection of Social Darwinism, the early anticipation of the triumph of "evolutionary synthesis," and the heavy concentration on the social and moral aspects of evolutionary thought. Vividly argued and rich in detail, Darwin in Russian Thought provides a unique glimpse into the Russian psyche.

Darwin Without Malthus

Darwin Without Malthus
Author: Daniel Philip Todes
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 242
Release: 1989
Genre: Biology
ISBN: 0195058305

The first book in English to examine in detail the scientific work of 19th-century Russian evolutionists, and the first in any language to explore the relationship of their theories to their economic, political, and natural milieu.

One Long Argument

One Long Argument
Author: Ernst Mayr
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1991
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780674639065

The great evolutionist Mayr elucidates the subtleties of Darwin’s thought and that of his contemporaries and intellectual heirs—A. R. Wallace, T. H. Huxley, August Weisman, Asa Gray. Mayr has achieved a remarkable distillation of Darwin’s scientific thought and his legacy to twentieth-century biology.

Reading Darwin in Imperial Russia

Reading Darwin in Imperial Russia
Author: Andrew M. Drozd
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2023-01-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1666920851

A 2023 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title Reading Darwin in Imperial Russia: Literature and Ideas expands upon the cataloging efforts of earlier scholarship on Darwin’s reception in Russia to analyze the rich cultural context and vital historical background of writings inspired by the arrival of Darwin’s ideas in Russia. Starting with the first Russian translation of The Origin of Species in 1864, educated Russians eagerly read Darwin’s works and reacted in a variety of ways. From enthusiasm to skepticism to hostility, these reactions manifested in a variety of published works, starting with the translations themselves, as well as critical reviews, opinion journalism, literary fiction, and polemical prose. The reception of Darwin spanned reverent, didactic, ironic, and sarcastic modes of interpretation. This book examines some of the best-known authors of the second half of the nineteenth century (Dostoevsky, Chernyshevsky, Chekhov) and others less well-known or nearly forgotten (Danilevsky, Timiriazev, Markevich, Strakhov) to explore the multi-faceted impact of Darwin’s ideas on Russian educated society. While elements of Darwin’s Russian reception were comparable to other countries, each author reveals distinctly Russian concerns tied to the meaning and consequences of the challenge posed by Darwinism. The scholars in this volume demonstrate not only what the authors wrote, but why they took their unique perspectives.

Toward Another Shore

Toward Another Shore
Author: Aileen Kelly
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 1998-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780300070248

In this thought-provoking book, an internationally acclaimed scholar writes about the passion for ideology among nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian intellectuals and about the development of sophisticated critiques of ideology by a continuing minority of Russian thinkers inspired by libertarian humanism. Aileen Kelly sets the conflict between utopian and anti-utopian traditions in Russian thought within the context of the shift in European thought away from faith in universal systems and "grand narratives" of progress toward an acceptance of the role of chance and contingency in nature and history. In the current age, as we face the dilemma of how to prevent the erosion of faith in absolutes and final solutions from ending in moral nihilism, we have much to learn from the struggles, failures, and insights of Russian thinkers, Kelly says. Her essays--some of them tours de force that have appeared before as well as substantial new studies of Turgenev, Herzen, and the Signposts debate--illuminate the insights of Russian intellectuals into the social and political consequences of ideas of such seminal Western thinkers as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Darwin. Russian Literature and Thought Series

The Tangled Tree

The Tangled Tree
Author: David Quammen
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1476776636

In this New York Times bestseller and longlist nominee for the National Book Award, “our greatest living chronicler of the natural world” (The New York Times), David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology affect our understanding of evolution and life’s history. In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important; we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree, “the grandest tale in biology….David Quammen presents the science—and the scientists involved—with patience, candor, and flair” (Nature). We learn about the major players, such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about “mosaic” creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe, who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer, bringing the deep study of genome histories to bear on a global crisis in public health. “David Quammen proves to be an immensely well-informed guide to a complex story” (The Wall Street Journal). In The Tangled Tree, he explains how molecular studies of evolution have brought startling recognitions about the tangled tree of life—including where we humans fit upon it. Thanks to new technologies, we now have the ability to alter even our genetic composition—through sideways insertions, as nature has long been doing. “The Tangled Tree is a source of wonder….Quammen has written a deep and daring intellectual adventure” (The Boston Globe).

Food in Russian History and Culture

Food in Russian History and Culture
Author: Musya Glants
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 1997-08-22
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 9780253211064

This Collection of Original Essays gives surprising insights into what foodways reveal about Russia's history and culture from Kievan times to the present. A wide array of sources - including chronicles, diaries, letters, police records, poems, novels, folklore, paintings, and cookbooks - help to interpret the moral and spiritual role of food in Russian culture. Stovelore in Russian folklife, fasting in Russian peasant culture, food as power in Dostoevsky's fiction, Tolstoy and vegetarianism, restaurants in early Soviet Russia, Soviet cookery and cookbooks, and food as art in Soviet paintings are among the topics discussed in this appealing volume.

Science in Russia and the Soviet Union

Science in Russia and the Soviet Union
Author: Loren R. Graham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 1993
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780521287890

By the 1980s the Soviet scientific establishment had become the largest in the world, but very little of its history was known in the West. What has been needed for many years in order to fill that gap in our knowledge is a history of Russian and Soviet science written for the educated person who would like to read one book on the subject. This book has been written for that reader. The history of Russian and Soviet science is a story of remarkable achievements and frustrating failures. That history is presented here in a comprehensive form, and explained in terms of its social and political context. Major sections include the tsarist period, the impact of the Russian Revolution, the relationship between science and Soviet society, and the strengths and weaknesses of individual scientific disciplines. The book also discusses the changes brought to science in Russia and other republics by the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The Reception of Darwinism in the Iberian World

The Reception of Darwinism in the Iberian World
Author: T.F Glick
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 9401006024

I Twenty-five years ago, at the Conference on the Comparative Reception of Darwinism held at the University of Texas in 1972, only two countries of the Iberian world-Spain and Mexico-were represented.' At the time, it was apparent that the topic had attracted interest only as regarded the "mainstream" science countries of Western Europe, plus the United States. The Eurocentric bias of professional history of science was a fact. The sea change that subsequently occurred in the historiography of science makes 1972 appear something like the antediluvian era. Still, we would like to think that that meeting was prescient in looking beyond the mainstream science countries-as then perceived-in order to test the variation that ideas undergo as they pass from center to periphery. One thing that the comparative study of the reception of ideas makes abundantly clear, however, is the weakness of the center/periphery dichotomy from the perspective of the diffusion of scientific ideas. Catholics in mainstream countries, for example, did not handle evolution much better than did their corre1igionaries on the fringes. Conversely, Darwinians in Latin America were frequently better placed to advance Darwin's ideas in a social and political sense than were their fellow evolutionists on the Continent. The Texas meeting was also a marker in the comparative reception of scientific ideas, Darwinism aside. Although, by 1972, scientific institutions had been studied comparatively, there was no antecedent for the comparative history of scientific ideas.