This book provides both for academic historians and the general reader a broad perspective on Darwin's impact in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds. In Latin American countries with black and Amerindian populations, evolutionary theory was quickly mobilized for theorizing racial differences, while in Spain attention was focused on class differentiation, explained by a series of Darwinian, Social Darwinist, and Eugenic hypotheses. The wide variety of approaches to evolutionary and social theory in countries whose culture was very similar points illuminates those issues thought to be of particular significance for national identity, whether political, ethnic, or racial.
Preface. Part One: The Reception of Darwinism. The Evolutionist Mentality in Argentina: An Ideology of Progress; M. Montserrat. The Reception of Darwinism in Uruguay; T.F. Glick. Biological Evolutionism in Cuba at the End of the Nineteenth Century; P.M.P. Goodgall. The Introduction of Darwinism in Brazil; H.M.B. Domingues, M.R. Sa. Natural History, High-Altitude Physiology and Evolutionary Ideas in Peru; M. Cueto. Repercussions of Evolutionism in the Spanish Natural History Society; F. Pelayo. Darwinism and Botany: The Acceptance of Darwinian Concepts in Nineteenth-Century Spanish Botanical Studies; S. Pinar. Darwinism in Spanish Physical Anthropology; M.A. Puig-Samper. Part Two: Eugenics, Degeneration and Social Darwinism. The Mexican Eugenics Society: Racial Selection and Improvement; L.S. Y Lopez-Guazo. Darwinism, Eugenics and Mendelism in Cuban Biological Education: 1900-1959; A.G. Gonzalez. The Theory of Degeneration in Spain (1886-1920); R.C. Marin, R. Huertas. The Moral Economy of Nature: Darwinism and the Struggle for Life in Spanish Anarchism (1882-1914(; A. Giron. 'Desvio al Paraiso': Citizenship and Social Darwinism in Bolivia, 1880-1920; M. Irurozqui. Part Three: Theoretical Perspectives. The Scientific and Popular Receptions of Darwin, Freud, and Einstein: Toward an Analytical History of the Diffusion of Scientific Ideas; Th.F. Glick, M.G. Henderson. Darwinism: Its Hard Core; R. Ruiz, F.J. Ayala. Index.
