University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press
Pages: 258
Trim: 6½ x 9½
978-1-61148-386-4 • Hardback • November 2011 • $120.00 • (£92.00)
978-1-61148-387-1 • eBook • November 2011 • $114.00 • (£88.00)
Leila Gómez is associate professor of Latin American Literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Introduction: Darwin, the Heart of the Controversy: Science, Politics, and Literature, by Leila Gomez
Section I. The First Readers of The Origin of Species in Argentina: The Dialogue between Darwin and Muñiz, and the Dispute on Natural Selection with Hudson (Darwin, Hudson, Muñiz, Sarmiento)
- William Henry Hudson, The Woodpecker of the Pampas
- Charles Darwin, The Response
- Francisco Javier Muñiz, The Muñi-Felis Bonaerensis
- Charles Darwin, A Letter to Muñiz
- Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Ñata Oxen
Section II. Scientific Fantasies: Followers and Detractors of Darwin in Argentina (Sarmiento, Ameghino, Moreno, Alberdi, Holmberg, Burmeister, Lugones, Estrada)
- Eduardo L. Holmberg, Two Parties in Conflict
- Eduardo L. Holmberg, Charles Robert Darwin
- Francisco P. Moreno, The Study of the South American Man
- Domingo F. Sarmiento, Darwin
- Juan Bautista Alberdi, Luz del Día´s Pilgrimage
- Hermann Burmeister, History of Creation
- Florentino Ameghino, Remembrance in Honor of Darwin. Transformism as an Exact Science
- Leopoldo Lugones, Tribute to Ameghino
- José Manuel Estrada, Naturalism and Education
- Leopoldo Lugones, Izur
Section III. Darwin and the Shaping of Argentine Identity. Historical-Sociological (Sarmiento, Bunge, Ramos Mejía, Ingenieros)
- José María Ramos Mejía, The Argentine Masses
- Carlos O. Bunge, Our America
- Jose Ingenieros, Sociological Evolution in Argentina: from Barbarism to Imperialism
- Domingo F. Sarmiento, Racial Conflict and Harmony in the Americas
Bibliography
Gómez (Latin American literature, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder) has compiled and edited essays, letters, and fiction from an eclectic group of writers including Charles Darwin and contemporary Argentinean scientists and men of letters. These excerpts highlight the actual controversy that took place in Argentina between supporters and opponents of evolution after publication of the Origin (1859), and contrasts it with a fictional feud between Darwinists and anti-Darwinists, first portrayed in Eduardo Holmberg's novel Two Parties in Conflict (1875). That work pictured an elderly Darwin revisiting Argentina to explain his theory to both groups; this is not entirely credible because after Darwin returned to England, he did not travel far and shunned controversy. When Darwin's ideas reached Argentina, the foundations of scientific and "sociological" thought in Argentina were shaken. Gómez suggests that the confrontation between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Henry Huxley in 1860 at Oxford University--meetings Darwin scrupulously avoided, leaving Huxley to battle the anti-Darwinians alone--assisted in the dissemination of Darwinism. The observations of William Henry Hudson concerning the pampas woodpecker and Darwin's responses perhaps are the most relevant natural history passages included here. This anthology is best suited for scholars of Latin American literature. Summing Up: Recommended.
— Choice Reviews