New Releases by Adrian Desmond

In the 1830s, decades before Darwin published the Origin of Species, a museum of evolution flourished in London. Reign of the Beast pieces together the extraordinary story of this lost working-man''s institution and its enigmatic owner, the wine merchant W. D. Saull. A financial backer of the anti-clerical Richard Carlile, the ‘Devil''s Chaplain’ Robert Taylor, and socialist Robert Owen, Saull outraged polite society by putting humanity’s ape ancestry on display. He weaponized his museum fossils and empowered artisans with a knowledge of deep geological time that undermined the Creationist base of the Anglican state. His geology museum, called the biggest in Britain, housed over 20,000 fossils, including famous dinosaurs. Saull was indicted for blasphemy and reviled during his lifetime. After his death in 1855, his museum was demolished and he was expunged from the collective memory. Now multi-award-winning author Adrian Desmond undertakes a thorough reading of Home Office spy reports and subversive street prints to re-establish Saull''s pivotal place at the intersection of the history of geology, atheism, socialism, and working-class radicalism.

Applying his controversial theory of evolution to the origins of the human species, Charles Darwin''s The Descent of Man was the culmination of his life''s work. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by James Moore and Adrian Desmond. In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin refused to discuss human evolution, believing the subject too ''surrounded with prejudices''. He had been reworking his notes since the 1830s, but only with trepidation did he finally publish The Descent of Man in 1871. The book notoriously put apes in our family tree and made the races one family, diversified by ''sexual selection'' - Darwin''s provocative theory that female choice among competing males leads to diverging racial characteristics. Named by Sigmund Freud as ''one of the ten most significant books'' ever written, Darwin''s Descent of Man continues to shape the way we think about what it is that makes us uniquely human. In their introduction, James Moore and Adrian Desmond, acclaimed biographers of Charles Darwin, call for a radical re-assessment of the book, arguing that its core ideas on race were fired by Darwin''s hatred of slavery. The text is the second and definitive edition and this volume also contains suggestions for further reading, a chronology and biographical sketches of prominent individuals mentioned. Charles Darwin (1809-82), a Victorian scientist and naturalist, has become one of the most famous figures of science to date. The advent of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 challenged and contradicted all contemporary biological and religious beliefs. If you enjoyed The Descent of Man, you might like Darwin''s On the Origin of Species, also available in Penguin Classics.

In this remarkable book Adrian Desmond and James Moore, world authorities on Darwin, give a completely new explanation of how Darwin came to his famous view of evolution, which traced all life to an ancient common ancestor. Darwin was committed to the abolition of slavery, in part because of his family''s deeply held beliefs. It was his ''Sacred Cause'' and at its core lay a belief in human racial unity. Desmond and Moore show how he extended to all life the idea of human brotherhood held by those who fought to abolish slavery, so developing our modern view of evolution. Through massive detective work among unpublished family correspondence, manuscripts and rare works, the authors back up their compelling claim. Leading apologists for slavery in Darwin''s day argued that blacks and whites had originated as separate species, with whites superior. Creationists too believed that ''man'' was superior to other species. Darwin abhorred such ''arrogance''; he declared it ''more humble & ... true'' to see humans ''created from animals''. Darwin gave all the races - blacks and whites, animals and plants - a common origin and freed them from creationist shackles. Evolution meant emancipation. Darwin''s Sacred Cause restores Darwin''s humanitarianism, tarnished by atheistic efforts to hijack his reputation and creationist attempts to smear him. Desmond and Moore argue that only by understanding Darwin''s Christian abolitionist inheritance can we shed new light on the perplexing mix of personal drive, public hesitancy and scientific radicalism that led him finally in 1871 to publish The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. The result is an epoch-making study of this eminent Victorian.

Definitive, concise, and very interesting... From William Shakespeare to Winston Churchill, the Very Interesting People series provides authoritative bite-sized biographies of Britain''s most fascinating historical figures - people whose influence and importance have stood the test of time. Each book in the series is based upon the biographical entry from the world-famous Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. -

In lively and accessible style, the authors tell how Darwin came to his world-changing conclusions and how he kept his thoughts secret for twenty years. Hailed as the definitive biography, this book explains Darwin''s paradox and offers a window on Victorian science, theology, and mores. Contains a wealth of new information and 90 photographs.

Looking for the first time at the cut-price anatomy schools rather than genteel Oxbridge, Desmond winkles out pre-Darwinian evolutionary ideas in reform-minded and politically charged early nineteenth-century London. In the process, he reveals the underside of London intellectual and social life in the generation before Darwin as it has never been seen before. "The Politics of Evolution is intellectual dynamite, and certainly one of the most important books in the history of science published during the past decade."—Jim Secord, Times Literary Supplement "One of those rare books that not only stakes out new territory but demands a radical overhaul of conventional wisdom."—John Hedley Brooke, Times Higher Education Supplement

"The social construction of scientific knowledge, clearly one of the most exciting trends in the history of science in the 1890''s, has made a solid stride forward with the publication of Archetypes and Ancestors. . . . Adrian Desmond set out to determine how much light might be shed on the mid-Victorian controversies over fossil reconstruction by an investigation of the ideological commitments and political programs of London paleontologists. The answer is: a great deal of light. The resulting book is thoroughly fascinating."—Philip Rehbock, American Historical Review "A sophisticated study of the colonization of scientific territory—specifically of rival attempts to design the dinosaur—and of the constructive (not just obstructive) role of social pressures in the making of ''lasting contributions'' to science. Not least it is a joy to read, perkily irreverent at times and full of nice vignettes and memorable turns of phrase."—Roy Porter, Times Higher Education Supplement