Abstract
In 1871 Charles Darwin published The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex, his first major contribution to the natural explanation of the origin of mankind, a subject deliberately omitted from his better known work The origin of species. Convinced that the time was ripe to address this thorny issue in public, Darwin produces a book that is, in form and substance, profoundly Victorian. It reflects his prejudices of class, gender and (imperial) nation, while at the same time laying the foundations for our contemporary view of human evolution without any supernatural intervention. This commemorative collection offers us a broad and diverse overview of current knowledge about the origins of humanity.
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Notes
- 1.
We have been inspired by this phrase to title this volume, which analyses the context of Darwin’s work and opens up a panorama of current research on human evolution.
- 2.
Darwin to A. R. Wallace, 27 March [1869], Darwin Correspondence Project, letter no. DCP-LETT-6684.
- 3.
Today, more than 15,000 letters exchanged with more than 2000 interlocutors are preserved, many of them accessible online thanks to the Darwin Correspondence Project of the University of Cambridge (https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/).
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Peretó, J., Bertranpetit, J. (2022). Light Would Be Thrown: Human Evolution 150 Years After Darwin. In: Bertranpetit, J., Peretó, J. (eds) Illuminating Human Evolution: 150 Years after Darwin. Evolutionary Studies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3246-5_1
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