Arrival of the Fittest - Biology''s Imaginary Futures, 19001935

"In the early twentieth century communities made creative use of the new theories of heredity in circulation at the time, including the now largely forgotten mutation theory of Hugo de Vries. Science fiction writers, socialists, feminists, and utopians are among those who seized on the amazing possibilities of rapid and potentially controllable evolution. De Vries's highly respected scientific theory only briefly captured the attention of the scientific community, but its many fans appropriated it for their own wildly imaginative ends. Writers from H.G. Wells and Edith Wharton, to Charlotte Perkins Gilman, J.B.S. Haldane, and Aldous Huxley created a new kind of imaginary future-what Jim Endersby calls the biotopia. It took the utopian and dystopian possibilities of biology and presented them in ways that still influence the public's understanding of the life sciences. Arrival of the Fittest recovers the fascinating, long-forgotten origins of ideas that have informed works of fiction from Brave New World to the X-Men movies, all while reflecting on the lessons-positive and negative-that this period might offer us"--

About the author

Jim Endersby is professor of the history of science at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Orchid: A Cultural History, Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science, and A Guinea Pig's History of Biology.

Product details

• Authors: Jim Endersby, Endersby Jim
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 06.01.2025
• EAN: 9780226837567
• ISBN: 978-0-226-83756-7
• No. of pages: 400
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; History, SCIENCE / History, SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Evolution, LITERARY CRITICISM / Science Fiction & Fantasy, History of Science, Early 20th century c 1900 to c 1950, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers