Darwin without Malthus: The Struggle for Existence in Russian Evolutionary Thought

by Daniel P. Todes

Nineteenth century Russian intellectuals perceived a Malthusian bias in Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection. They identified that bias with Darwin's concept of the struggle for existence and his emphasis upon the evolutionary role of overpopulation and intraspecific conflict. In this book, Todes documents a historical Russian critique of Darwin's Malthusian error, explores its relationship to such scientific work as Mechnikov's phagocytic theory, Korzhinskii's mutation theory and Kropotkin's theory of mutual aid, and finds its origins in Russia's political economy and in the very nature of its land and climate. This is the first book in English to examine in detail the scientific work of nineteenth century Russian evolutionists, and the first in any language to explore the relationship of Russian theories to the economic, political, and natural circumstances in which they were generated. It combines a broad scope (dealing with political figures and cultural movements) with a close analysis of scientific work on a range of topics.

Genres: Science, History

238 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's a strange topic. I love this book. It's about Russian science in the 19th century and how they interpreted Darwin. Which is quite differently to how England and France and Germany interpreted him. Why the difference? This book sets out to explain: Russian scientists didn't see a 'struggle for existence' going on around them. Because of their environment, they saw more evidence of co-operation in - and among - animal species, and 'mutual aid' described the way of the world for them, not the cut-throat struggle.
How fascinating is that?

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is totally brilliant. Todes traces the way that Darwin's metaphor "the struggle for existence," which resonated well in British society, simply didn't translate into the Russian cultural context. There, it seemed like ultra-Malthusianism, and evolutionist ideas ended up morphing into the more cooperativist forms propagated by Kropotkin. Such a smart project!

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven't actually technically read this cover to cover but if the chapters I did read, lots was very interesting and useful for discovering the scientific context within which aleksandr bogdanov will have trained and worked! Can highly recommend if this topic sounds at all interesting to you

May come back to the remaining chapters at a later date pending the direction of the thesis

[Kaden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this after reading Gould's "Kropotkin Was No Crackpot". Quite a good little monograph on how Darwin was received in 19th century Russia, with a focus on the impact of the metaphor "struggle for existence." The most interesting part of this to me was not the analysis of the causes of reception per se (as Gould's essay is quite sufficient in locating this for me), but instead the way the reception of the metaphor was, in hindsight, very much shaped by the lack of an explanation for variation (this was the case until the modern synthesis).

The importance of this monograph comes from the need to, so to speak, read the losers of science. While they may have not gotten everything right, they were responding to real issues in the theories of their times and thus have a bit of truth in them. Without the determination of the false, there can be no truth.

[D]

https://books.google.com/books?id=rjV...