What about Darwin?: all species of opinion from scientists, sages, friends, and enemies who met, read, and discussed the naturalist who changed the world

Abstract

Charles Darwin and his revolutionary ideas inspired pundits the world over to put pen to paper. In this unique dictionary of quotations, Darwin scholar Thomas Glick presents fascinating observations about Darwin and his ideas from such notable figures as P. T. Barnum, Anton Chekhov, Mahatma Gandhi, Carl Jung, Martin Luther King, Mao Tse-tung, Pius IX, Jules Verne, and Virginia Woolf. What was it about Darwin that generated such widespread interest? His Origin of Species changed the world. Naturalists, clerics, politicians, novelists, poets, musicians, economists, and philosophers alike could not help but engage his theory of evolution. Whatever their view of his theory, however, those who met Darwin were unfailingly charmed by his modesty, kindness, honesty, and seriousness of purpose. This diverse collection drawn from essays, letters, novels, short stories, plays, poetry, speeches, and parodies demonstrates how Darwin's ideas permeated all areas of thought. The quotations trace a broad conversation about Darwin across great distances of time and space, revealing his profound influence on the great thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.