Darwin and the Memory of the Human
Evolution, Savages, and South America

This book shows how Victorian naturalists transformed their encounters with South America into influential accounts of biological change.

Cannon Schmitt (Author)

9781107412583, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 January 2013

262 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.36 kg

'… brilliant, original … ultimately satisfying… The book is impressive … brilliant attention to language … wonderful book.' George Levine, Rutgers University and New York University

When the young Charles Darwin landed on the shores of Tierra del Fuego in 1832, he was overwhelmed: nothing had prepared him for the sight of what he called 'an untamed savage'. The shock he felt, repeatedly recalled in later years, definitively shaped his theory of evolution. In this original and wide-ranging study, In this book Cannon Schmitt shows how Darwin and other Victorian naturalists transformed such encounters with South America and its indigenous peoples into influential accounts of biological and historical change. Redefining what it means to be human, they argue that the modern self must be understood in relation to a variety of pasts - personal, historical, and ancestral - conceived of as savage. Schmitt reshapes our understanding of Victorian imperialism, revisits the implications of Darwinian theory, and demonstrates the pertinence of nineteenth-century biological thought to current theorizations of memory.

Introduction
1. Charles Darwin's savage mnemonics
2. Alfred Russel Wallace's tropical memorabilia
3. Charles Kingsley's recollected empire
4. W. H. Hudson's memory of loss
Coda: some reflections.

Subject Areas: Evolution [PSAJ], History of science [PDX], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]