Introduction / Charles H. Smith, James T. Costa, and David Collard -- The early evolution of Wallace as a thinker / Charles H. Smith -- Wallace and the "preter-normal" / Charles H. Smith -- Field study, collecting, and systematic representation / James T. Costa -- Wallace, Darwin, and natural selection / James T. Costa -- Wallace on the colors of animals : defense against predators / Hannah M. Rowland and Eleanor Drinkwater -- The many influences shaping Wallace's views on human evolution / Sherrie Lyons -- Wallace as social critic, sociologist, and societal "prophet" / Martin Fichman -- Land and economics / David Collard -- Physical geography, glaciology, and geology / Charles H. Smith -- Historical and ecological biogeography / James T. Costa -- Wallace at the foundations of biogeography and the frontiers of conservation biology / Mark V. Lomolino -- Wallace and extraterrestrial life / Robert W. Smith -- Coda.
Summary:
Although Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was one of the most famous scientists in the world at the time of his death at the age of ninety, today he is known to many as a kind of "almost-Darwin," a secondary figure relegated to the footnotes of Darwin's prodigious insights. But this diminution could hardly be less justified. Research into the life of this brilliant naturalist and social critic continues to produce new insights into his significance to history and his role in helping to shape modern thought. Wallace declared his eight years of exploration in southeast Asia to be "the central and controlling incident" of his life. As 2019 marks one hundred and fifty years since the publication of The Malay Archipelago, Wallace's canonical work chronicling his epic voyage, this collaborative book gathers an interdisciplinary array of writers to celebrate Wallace's remarkable life and diverse scholarly accomplishments. Wallace left school at the age of fourteen and was largely self-taught, a voracious curiosity and appetite for learning sustaining him throughout his long life. After years as a surveyor and builder, in 1848 he left Britain to become a professional natural history collector in the Amazon, where he spent four years. Then, in 1854, he departed for the Malay Archipelago. It was on this voyage that he constructed a theory of natural selection similar to the one Charles Darwin was developing, and the two copublished papers on the subject in 1858, some sixteen months before the release of Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
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