Charles Darwin: A New Life

by John Bowlby

'A vivid & engrossing account of Darwin's inner life & his search for the laws of life. We feel the durable texture of his friendships & family attachments, & we witness the slow, painful genesis of ideas that are still transforming the world.'--Geoffrey Cowley, NY Times Book Review

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Biography, Psychology, History, Biology

527 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Psychologist, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attachment theory.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This biography arose out of what was originally intended as a much shorter discussion of the causes of Darwin's chronic ill-health (stomach pains, vomiting) by an author trained in psychology. The thesis is that Darwin did not have any kind of "organic" illness but instead suffered from chronic hyperventilation due to anxiety. Bowlby attributes this anxiety in turn to repressed grieving for the death of Darwin's mother when he was 8 years old and a "difficult" relationship with his father until the Voyage of the Beagle. The "organic illness" theory arises from a notion that Darwin could have been infected with a parasitic illness whilst in South America. There are strong reasons for discounting the latter theory, the two most telling being that symptoms were first mentioned by Darwin in the run up to the departure of the Beagle, before he had ever set foot outside Britain and that symptoms had eased during his final years and he died of something unrelated. All of this is convincing but it has been suggested that Darwin was autistic and autistic people are prone to anxiety and depression, just as Darwin was. They often show the obsessive focus on narrow topics, "special interests", that Darwin did first in relation to geology, then in relation to natural history, including his eight year definitive study of every living and fossil species of barnacle then known, which was merely part of his 20+ year campaign to justify the evolution of species by natural selection. Darwin also struggled in school (and was bullied) despite his enormous ability - this is not unusual for autistic people either. Nor is his childhood penchant for collecting things for their own sake,

Bowlby suggests Darwin was "sociable" which would counter an autism diagnosis but in fact goes on to say that he could only meet people for 1/2 hr max. before anxiety would overcome him and lead to a vomiting attack. Darwin also moved out of London to the country in Kent, attended few formal functions, including receipt of medals, memberships of learned societies and so forth and had only one real friend who was not also a scientific colleague. He much prefered to communicate by letter and wrote extensively to other scientists.

The idea that Darwin was traumatised in childhood and that this affected his later life is not mutually exclusive to the notion that he was autistic but the latter clearly explains more of the significant features of Darwin's life than the former and though the idea is currently controversial (much more so than for Einstein and Dirac) I am convinced he was.

As for the biography in general, it's good: the author expressly states that he is not competent to give a deep explanation of Darwin's science or how it is viewed now. You'll have to look elsewhere for that. If you accept that, then this is a good, detailed, look at Darwin's life. My one criticism is that Bowlby keeps on being dragged off on tangents; the coverage of Darwin's parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, wife and colleagues is excessive and probably would cut the book down by ~50p if reduced to a sensible level, without really impairing one's understanding of the real subject: Darwin.

[John]

Bowlby's biography is not a work that I would recommend to anyone who hasn't read several biographies of Darwin: Janet Browne or Desmond/Moore for example. My sense is that one has to be rather well acquinted with Darwin - and come to care about the man - in order to digest a psychologist's analysis of Darwin's ill health or to care very much about cause and effect at all. I know that was my response, when I bought the book when it was first published. I simply couldn't read beyond the first twenty-five pages. But now that I've read other bios I find this work really quite illuminating on important biographical points that others seem not to have noticed or examined in the detail they deserve, the central importance of John Herschel and Alexander von Humbolt on Darwin's passion and approach to "natural history," for example. More later.

[Maria Eduarda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bowlby does an extremely detailed analysis of the life of Darwin from the point of view of Darwin’s emotional experience. Darwin was emotionally sick and Bowlby unshrowds his emotions through his letters to his family, academic acquaintances being them friends or enemies. Confirmation to his hypothesis, found in the written memoirs of Francis Darwin, of confidences of his family members in written letters, are added to the narrative.
Thus we become adamantly involved in the life and thought of an indispensable scientist that is able to give credit throughout all his life to a movement, the evolutionists, a group of scientists and philosophers that started to encounter around them reasons to abandon creationist views of man as a species.
Is in this fashion that the reader becomes almost knowledgeable about XIX century British scientific society and witness the birth of a scientific method for Biology.
Darwin is insecure, timid, easily intimidated, suffered from the systematic repression of emotions and self contempt, and was dependent of the two women that surrounded him; and is with this emotional life that he becomes a scientist, almost without surpassing the phase from attached to the family to attached to the group at large.
An incredible believable analysis that turns out in a excellent book. Old books make an excellent reading time!

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having a great interest in the Christian Religion, no other scientist, with the exception of Einstein has had such a profound impact on it's theology. I was curious about the man behind the theory and found his story most interesting. He was a man who overcame not only the criticisms his theory generated, he also was victimized by an inexplicable series of health issues that plagued him for thirty years throughout his life. He also was plagued by an inferiority complex caused in part, by his father, whom he loved and to the end of his life, tried to please and live up to his standards. This book is somewhat dated, (1990)but was the latest book I was able to find.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I am interested in the 19th century, I wanted to read a biography this major figure. A man whose ideas still impact science and society in major ways today.

This is a particularly interesting biography of Darwin because it's author John Bowlby is a psychologist. He explores why Darwin basically dropped out of society, his "illness", the effect of his daughter's death, and the loss of his religious faith.

I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in the 19th century or understanding Charles Darwin.

[Quinndara · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Bowlby's purpose in writing a book about Charles Darwin was to give a studied opinion that speaks to the controversy over whether Darwin's chronic ill-health was of an organic or emotional cause. Bowlby, a psychiatrist based in London, is the originator of Attachment Theory and was keenly interested in the psychological effects of bereavement on children. Bowlby details Darwin's family background, heritage, education, scientific discoveries, and in so doing, gives a fine portrait of Darwin, his times, and his accomplishments.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

How Darwin persisted thru 20 yrs before publishing his theories while suffering psychosomatic illnesses that he believed were inherited.

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

More of a psychoanalysis of Darwin than a biography, be warned.