The American scientist Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935) stood at the forefront of the debate over the evolution of man. Study of his theories, however, has been overshadowed by the perception that racism influenced his ideas. Henry Fairfield Osborn argues that his views were motivated by his science, itself grounded in religious doctrine. Osborn rejected ideas of primate ancestry and constructed his own non-Darwinian theory that human evolution was the long adventurous story of individuals and groups exerting personal will-power and inborn (...) characteristics to achieve both biological success and spiritual salvation. This biography charts Osborn's intellectual development, from a Christian childhood, through the influences of Arnold Guyot, James McCosh and T.H. Huxley, to his career at the American Museum of Natural History. (shrink)

A provocative critique of Western attitudes about the Orient, this history examines the ways in which the West has discovered, invented, and sought to control the East from the 1700s to the present.

Where do humans come from? How did they evolve? How did different races come into existence? The quest for modern human origins has both fascinated and divided people for centuries. Theories of race and questions of whether humans can be categorized in different species have caused polarization and discord in the sciences throughout history, and theories currently in vogue may have as much to do with contemporary cultural politics as with science. Race and Human Evolution is a far-ranging account by (...) leading researchers in the field that describes the latest scientific evidence and the conflicting theories about human evolution. Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari describe the “Eve” or “Out-of-Africa” theory, which holds that all living people are the descendants of a single common ancestor (“Eve”) who began a new species of humanity in Africa some 200,000 years ago and whose progeny spread throughout the world, giving rise to the different human races. The authors show that the evidence of the fossil record and genetic data support “Multiregionalism,” which posits that for some two million years human populations have been entwined in a network of widespread peoples who evolved together because they met and interbred, giving the races today many ancestors, not a single common one. Race and Human Evolution shows how the debate over the “Eve” theory reflects a long history of theories about human origins and race that has been fraught with social and political implications. Race and human evolution have become tangled during some of the most important eras in our history: European colonizations, which sparked questions over the humanity of indigenous natives, and the slavery issue and whether Jefferson's claims of humanity and quality for all people applied to slaves. While Darwinism, the discovery of Neanderthals, and Mendel's genetic theories combined to give us modern paleoanthropology, the eugenics movement and even Nazism also sprang from these ideas.The debate now raging cannot free itself of this background. Certain to be controversial but also to illuminate an argument that has persisted for centuries and which persists in some of today's most inflammatory social and political issues, Race and Human Evolution provides an authoritative account of the science and the scientists behind the controversy over the origin of humanity and its racial differences. (shrink)

These essays collectively present new perspectives on the history of modern science in China since 1900. Fa‐ti Fan describes how science under the Republic of China after 1911 exhibited a complex local and international character that straddled both imperialism and colonialism. Danian Hu focuses on the fate of relativity in the physics community in China after 1917. Zuoyue Wang hopes that a less nationalist political atmosphere in China will stimulate more transnational studies of modern science, which will in turn reveal (...) the underlying commonalities in different national contexts. Sigrid Schmalzer compares the socialist and the capitalist contexts for science in China and reopens the sensitive question of the “mass line” during the Cultural Revolution. Grace Shen describes the tensions early Chinese scientists felt when choosing between foreign models for modern geology and their own professional identities in China. Taken together, these accounts present us with a comparative history of modern science in China that is both globally and locally informed. (shrink)