Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and Other Evolutionary Writings by Robert Chambers

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and Other Evolutionary Writings by Robert Chambers

Originally published anonymously in 1844, "Vestiges" proved to be as controversial as its author expected. Integrating research in the burgeoning sciences of anthropology, geology, astronomy, biology, economics and chemistry, it was the first attempt to connect the natural sciences to a history of creation. The author, whose identity was not revealed until 1884, was Robert Chambers, a leading Scottish writer and publisher. "Vestiges" reached a huge popular audience and was widely read by the social and intellectual elite. It sparked debate about natural law, setting the stage for the controversy over Darwin's "Origin". In response to the surrounding debate and criticism, Chambers published "Explanations: A Sequel", in which he offered a reasoned defence of his ideas about natural law, castigating what he saw as the narrowness of specialist science. With a new introduction by James Secord, a bibliography of reviews and a new index, this volume adds to "Vestiges" and "Explanations" Chambers's earliest works on cosmology, an essay on Darwin, and an autobiographical essay, raising important issues about the changing meanings of popular science and religion and the rise of secular ideologies in Western culture.

Rural Development: Putting the Last First (1983), Challanging the Professions (1993), and Whose Reality Counts? are among Robert Chambers' other works.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780226100739
ISBN 10	0226100731
Title	Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and Other Evolutionary Writings
Author	Robert Chambers
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The University of Chicago Press
Year published	1994-08-15
Number of pages	770
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.