The Darwinian Revolution-the change in thinking sparked by Charles
Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which argued that all organisms
including humans are the end product of a long, slow, natural
process of evolution rather than the miraculous creation of an
all-powerful God-is one of the truly momentous cultural events in
Western Civilization. Darwinism as Religion is an innovative and
exciting approach to this revolution through creative writing,
showing how the theory of evolution as expressed by Darwin has,
from the first, functioned as a secular religion. Drawing on a deep
understanding of both the science and the history, Michael Ruse
surveys the naturalistic thinking about the origins of organisms,
including the origins of humankind, as portrayed in novels and in
poetry, taking the story from its beginnings in the Age of
Enlightenment in the 18th century right up to the present. He shows
that, contrary to the opinion of many historians of the era, there
was indeed a revolution in thought and that the English naturalist
Charles Darwin was at the heart of it. However, contrary also to
what many think, this revolution was not primarily scientific as
such, but more religious or metaphysical, as people were taken from
the secure world of the Christian faith into a darker, more hostile
world of evolutionism. In a fashion unusual for the history of
ideas, Ruse turns to the novelists and poets of the period for
inspiration and information. His book covers a wide range of
creative writers - from novelists like Voltaire and poets like
Erasmus Darwin in the eighteenth century, through the nineteenth
century with novelists including Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot,
Thomas Hardy, Henry James and H. G. Wells and poets including
Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and
Gerard Manley Hopkins, and on to the twentieth century with
novelists including Edith Wharton, D. H. Lawrence, John Steinbeck,
William Golding, Graham Greene, Ian McEwan and Marilynne Robinson,
and poets including Robert Frost, Edna St Vincent Millay and Philip
Appleman. Covering such topics as God, origins, humans, race and
class, morality, sexuality, and sin and redemption, and written in
an engaging manner and spiced with wry humor, Darwinism as Religion
gives us an entirely fresh, engaging and provocative view of one of
the cultural highpoints of Western thought.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(2)
(4)
