The Tragic Sense of Life
Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought
Format:Paperback
Publisher:The University of Chicago Press
Published:18th Sep '09
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Prior to World War I, more people learned of evolutionary theory from the voluminous writings of Charles Darwin's foremost champion in Germany, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), than from any other source, including the writings of Darwin himself. But, with detractors ranging from paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould to modern-day creationists and advocates of intelligent design, Haeckel is better known as a divisive figure than as a pioneering biologist. Robert J. Richards' intellectual biography rehabilitates Haeckel, providing the most accurate measure of his science and art yet written, as well as a moving account of Haeckel's eventful life.
"This is a brilliant book.... It is intellectually brilliant, offering an account of Haeckel as driven by tragic failures in love that colored his view of life. And the book is brilliant scholarship, drawing on a wide range of sources to paint a quite different picture of Haeckel's work than other scholars have achieved." - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences "An excellent, well-illustrated, and scholarly biography of Haeckel." - Andrew Robinson, Financial Times "The Tragic Sense of Life is an immensely impressive work of biography and intellectual history, and a fitting testament to a complex and contradictory character.... Richards succeeds brilliantly in reestablishing Haeckel as a significant scientist and a major figure in the history of evolutionary thought." - P. D. Smith, Times Literary Supplement"
ISBN: 9780226712161
Dimensions: 23mm x 16mm x 4mm
Weight: 822g
576 pages