Darwinism, War and History: The Debate over the Biology of War from the 'Origin of Species' to the First World War
This book 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 prior to 1919, this study throws important...
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An exciting reinterpretation of Social Darwinism, questioning conventional assumptions and proffering an alternative reading of a discourse of 'peace biology'.
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.
