Historicizing Humans: Deep Time, Evolution, and Race in Nineteenth-Century British Sciences

Description

With an Afterword by Theodore Koditschek A number of important developments and discoveries across the British Empire's imperial landscape during the nineteenth century invited new questions about human ancestry. The rise of secularism and scientific naturalism; new evidence, such as skeletal and archaeological remains; and European encounters with different people all over the world challenged the existing harmony between science and religion and threatened traditional biblical ideas about special creation and the timeline of human history. Advances in print culture and voyages of exploration also provided researchers with a wealth of material that contributed to their investigations into humanity’s past. Historicizing Humans takes a critical approach to nineteenth-century human history, as the contributors consider how these histories were shaped by the colonial world, and for various scientific, religious, and sociopolitical purposes. This volume highlights the underlying questions and shared assumptions that emerged as various human developmental theories competed for dominance throughout the British Empire. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. From the Beginning: Human History Theories in Nineteenth-Century British Sciences / Efram Sera-Shriar Chapter 1. Contemporaries of the Cave Bear and the Woolly Rhinoceros: Historicizing Prehistoric Humans and Extinct Beasts, 1859–1914 / Chris Manias Chapter 2. Of Rocks and “Men”: The Cosmogony of John William Dawson / Nanna Katrine Lüders Kaalund Chapter 3. Historicizing Belief: E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, and the Evolution of Religion / Efram Sera-Shriar Chapter 4. The History of the “Red Man”: William Bollaert and the Indigenous People of the Americas / Maurizio Esposito and Abigail Nieves Delgado Chapter 5. Historicizing Humans in Colonial India / Thomas Simpson Chapter 6. How and Why Darwin Got Emotional about Race / Gregory Radick Chapter 7. The Comparative Method in “Shallow Time”: Walter Scott, Thomas Carlyle, and Francis Galton / Helen Kingstone Chapter 8. The Future Evolution of “Man” / Ian Hesketh Afterword. Historiographical Reflections on the Historicization of Humans in Nineteenth-Century British Sciences / Theodore Koditschek Notes Bibliography List of Contributors Index