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Nicolaas Rupke, Robert J. Richards and Michael Ruse. Debating Darwin., The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 5, December 2018, Pages 1734–1735, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy309
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In most volumes with more than a single author, the contributors complement each other, addressing a common subject matter from a shared point of view. Robert J. Richards and Michael Ruse’s Debating Darwin is unusual in the sense that its two authors disagree, profoundly so, about their joint topic of interest—Charles Darwin. The very purpose of the collaboration is to bring to the fore each author’s very different interpretation of what the shared hero of the story really was all about, and what he meant in writing his two most consequential classics, On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871).
This format succeeds admirably well. Both Richards and Ruse are top-bracket historians and philosophers of science, and both have long been at the cutting edge of Darwin scholarship. While reading one author’s persuasive account, one can’t wait to read what the other could possibly have up his scholarly sleeve to outclass his opponent; and reading on, one equally eagerly anticipates the respective responses.
