The Impact of Darwinian Thought on American Life and Culture

The Impact of Darwinian Thought on American Life and Culture PDF Author: American Studies Association of Texas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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The Impact of Darwinian Thought on American Life and Culture

The Impact of Darwinian Thought on American Life and Culture PDF Author: American Studies Association of Texas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description


The Impact of Darwinian Thought on American Life and Culture. Papers Read at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association of Texas at Houston ... December 5, 1959

The Impact of Darwinian Thought on American Life and Culture. Papers Read at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association of Texas at Houston ... December 5, 1959 PDF Author: American Studies Association. Texas Chapter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 92

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From Darwin to Hitler

From Darwin to Hitler PDF Author: R. Weikart
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137109866
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
In this work, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary 'fitness' (especially intelligence and health) to the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism.

Social Darwinism in American Thought

Social Darwinism in American Thought PDF Author: Richard Hofstadter
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807054623
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Social Darwinism in American Thought portrays the overall influence of Darwin on American social theory and the notable battle waged among thinkers over the implications of evolutionary theory for social thought and political action. Theorists such as Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner adopted the idea of the struggle for existence as justification for the evils as well as the benefits of laissez-faire modern industrial society. Others such as William James and John Dewey argued that human planning was needed to direct social development and improve upon the natural order. Hofstadter's classic study of the ramifications of Darwinism is a major analysis of the social philosophies that animated intellectual movements of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era.

The Book That Changed America

The Book That Changed America PDF Author: Randall Fuller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143130099
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
A compelling portrait of a unique moment in American history when the ideas of Charles Darwin reshaped American notions about nature, religion, science and race “A lively and informative history.” – The New York Times Book Review Throughout its history America has been torn in two by debates over ideals and beliefs. Randall Fuller takes us back to one of those turning points, in 1860, with the story of the influence of Charles Darwin’s just-published On the Origin of Species on five American intellectuals, including Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, the child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace, and the abolitionist Franklin Sanborn. Each of these figures seized on the book’s assertion of a common ancestry for all creatures as a powerful argument against slavery, one that helped provide scientific credibility to the cause of abolition. Darwin’s depiction of constant struggle and endless competition described America on the brink of civil war. But some had difficulty aligning the new theory to their religious convictions and their faith in a higher power. Thoreau, perhaps the most profoundly affected all, absorbed Darwin’s views into his mysterious final work on species migration and the interconnectedness of all living things. Creating a rich tableau of nineteenth-century American intellectual culture, as well as providing a fascinating biography of perhaps the single most important idea of that time, The Book That Changed America is also an account of issues and concerns still with us today, including racism and the enduring conflict between science and religion.

Darwin in Atlantic Cultures

Darwin in Atlantic Cultures PDF Author: Jeannette Eileen Jones
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135178720
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
This collection is an interdisciplinary edited volume that examines the circulation of Darwinian ideas in the Atlantic space as they impacted systems of Western thought and culture. Specifically, the book explores the influence of the principle tenets of Darwinism -- such as the theory of evolution, the ape-man theory of human origins, and the principle of sexual selection -- on established transatlantic intellectual traditions and cultural practices. In doing so, it pays particular attention to how Darwinism reconfigured discourses on race, gender, and sexuality in a transnational context. Covering the period from the publication of The Origin of Species (1859) to 1933, when the Nazis (National Socialist Party) took power in Germany, the essays demonstrate the dissemination of Darwinian thought in the Western world in an unprecedented commerce of ideas not seen since the Protestant Reformation. Learned societies, literary groups, lyceums, and churches among other sites for public discourse sponsored lectures on the implications of Darwin’s theory of evolution for understanding the very ontological codes by which individuals ordered and made sense of their lives. Collectively, these gatherings reflected and constituted what the contributing scholars to this volume view as the discursive power of the cultural politics of Darwinism.

America's Darwin

America's Darwin PDF Author: Tina Gianquitto
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820346756
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
An engaging collection of interdisciplinary essays on the distinctive qualities of America's textual engagement with Darwinian evolutionary theory, especially in regard to On the Origin of Species, which highlights the influence of prevalent cultural anxieties on interpretation.

Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860-1915

Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860-1915 PDF Author: Richard Hofstadter
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1512816973
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Social Darwinism in American Thought examines the overall influence of Darwin on American social theory and the notable battle waged among thinkers over the implications of evolutionary theory for social thought and political action. Theorists such as Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner adopted the idea of the struggle for existence as justification for the evils—as well as the benefits—of laissez-faire modern industrial society. Others, such as William James and John Dewey, argued that human planning was needed to direct social development and improve on the natural order. Hofstadter's classic study of the ramifications of Darwinism is a major analysis of the social philosophies that animated intellectual movements of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era.

The Impact of Darwinian Thought on Ameircan Life and Culture

The Impact of Darwinian Thought on Ameircan Life and Culture PDF Author: American Studies Association. Texas Chapter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Darwinism in the Press

Darwinism in the Press PDF Author: Edward Caudill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136467440
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
Numerous books and articles have outlined Darwin's impact on American scientists, philosophers, businessmen, and clergy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Few, however, have undertaken a study of Darwinism in the form in which it was presented to most Americans -- popular newspapers and magazines. The main concern of this book is to identify how the press is treated as a part of our culture - - pointing to its ability to shape and to be shaped by the forces that act on the rest of society and its ability to be critical in the interpretation of ideas for "the masses."