Darwinism, War and History
The Debate over the Biology of War from the 'Origin of Species' to the First World War

An exciting reinterpretation of Social Darwinism, questioning conventional assumptions and proffering an alternative reading of a discourse of 'peace biology'.

Paul Crook (Author)

9780521466455, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 17 March 1994

320 pages
22.7 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.47 kg

"The principal strength of Crook's book is the careful, comparative textual analysis that characterizes Crook's treatment of the ideas he examines....this is first rate, old fashioned, intellectual history, which means it is both readable and comprehensible....this is a book that adds so much to our understanding of the origins of controversial, modern sociobiological thought." Richard A. Soloway, Comptes rendus

While much has been written upon Social Darwinism, the historical impact of Darwinism upon theories of war and human aggression has been sadly neglected. This book is the first to study this discourse in depth. It challenges the received view that Darwinism generated essentially aggressive and warlike social values and pugnacious images of humankind. Paul Crook reconstructs the influential discourse of 'peace biology', whose liberal vision was of a basically free humanity, not fettered by iron laws of biological necessity or governed by violent genes. By exploring a gamut of Darwinian readings of history and war, mainly in the English-speaking world to 1919, this study throws new light upon militarism, peace movements, the origins of World War I and British social thought.

1. The Darwinian legacy
2. The age of Spencer and Huxley
3. Crisis in the West: the pre-war generation and the new biology
4. 'The natural decline of warfare': anti-war evolutionism prior to 1914
5. The Great War: man the fighting animal
6. The survival of peace biology
7. Naturalistic fallacies and noble ends
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]