Michael Ruse passed away on 1 November 2024, so this is possibly his last book. It is, in any case, a summary of his life’s work, presented as a revision of his The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw (1979), based on material presented in a series of later works. It offers a survey of what may be called the long Darwinian revolution, from the period before Darwin published On the Origin of Species (1859) through the twenty-first century. Its aim is to reinforce the claim that Darwin’s thinking had a transformative impact on science, culture and society. The cover notes suggest that it may be read as a definitive history of the theory of evolution by natural selection, the inclusion of ‘natural selection’ being significant because, for Ruse, the publication and development of that theory are the central theme of the history of evolutionism. Few would dispute the profundity of Darwin’s impact on the way we think today, but Ruse and I have long disagreed over whether the story of natural selection is the only one that should be told about nineteenth-century evolutionism. I will return to this debate later in this review, but would like to record from the start that Michael and I were always on good terms at a personal level, however rude we were about each other in print.

The book opens with a brief discussion of two rival philosophies founded in the ancient world: Aristotle’s organicist vision of the universe as a living thing with a coherent design and Lucretius’ mechanistic view in which all we can do is study the processes that constantly transform the material world. This dichotomy helps to define Ruse’s interest in Darwin and natural selection – his proposal of that mechanism (although he notes that Darwin never uses the term ‘mechanism’ in this context) represents a key factor in the transition from the vision of a designed world into one of constant and by no means predictable change. The main historical overview starts with a brief account of early nineteenth-century ideas, followed by a substantial chapter on Darwin’s career and his discoveries. Ruse accepts that most of the elements he combined to make the hypothesis of natural selection were already in circulation – which is why Darwin was not a rebel (as the subtitle notes). But he combined those elements in an entirely new way that transformed our thinking about nature – which is why he was also a revolutionary.

Chapters follow on how the theory of natural selection was published, debated and eventually accepted as the main mechanism of evolution, told in a manner that will be familiar to readers of Ruse’s previous books. He was a philosopher who gradually acquired an interest in history, so themes related to the scientific method, Kuhnian revolutions and the impact of the theory on religion and formal philosophy feature strongly throughout. The link between evolutionism and the idea of progress is also prominent. The transformation of the selection theory through the synthesis with population genetics is covered in detail: for Ruse only those areas of science that worked with the theory are significant – other areas less receptive, including palaeontology, are dismissed as second-rate science. The final chapters provide an evaluation of the theory’s impact on a whole series of issues that confront the modern world: how it influences our views of the relationship between science and religion, and how it affects our attitudes to race and gender. Note again that Darwin himself was no rebel – his views on social issues were very much those of a liberally minded Victorian gentleman. Only much later has his theory been used to challenge the prejudices that were once prevalent in society, and Ruse provides a perceptive guide to the modern debates.

As noted earlier, Miachael Ruse and I had our differences over the interpretation of Darwin’s immediate impact and they are still apparent in this book. Coincidentally, it was published at almost the same time and by the same press as one of my own, Evolution for the People, for which Michael provided a generous appreciation printed on the back cover. Yet in his own survey I still appear as someone out to belittle Darwin’s achievement. I thought I had persuaded him that my interest in the alternatives to natural selection that flourished in the late nineteenth century was not intended to distract from a recognition of his theory’s implications. Rather, I saw this episode as an indication of just how hard it was for many of his contemporaries to come to terms with a vision of evolution as a process with no predetermined goal. Indeed, this new version of Ruse’s position accepts that major evolutionists such as Ernst Haeckel and Herbert Spencer strove to retain a belief in the inevitability of progress. And, for an account of Darwin’s impact, it also contains a surprising number of references to people who did not like the theory.

Here, though, is the key to Michael’s distrust of my position. For him, the reaction of literary figures such as Thomas Hardy, who saw Darwinism as nightmare vision of purposeless struggle, is an indication of his theory’s immediate impact. But if they did not recognize how natural selection could add a more positive dimension to the vision then I am not sure that they appreciated the whole theory – they saw only a pessimistic component that had already been articulated by earlier figures. We will never have the opportunity to thrash out this difference of opinion, but just as Michael could endorse my own book, I will urge anyone interested in Darwinism to read this summary of a life devoted to exploring the theory’s impact on our lives.