Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution

by David F. Prindle

Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould was, until his death in 2002, America's best-known natural scientist. His monthly essays in Natural History magazine were widely read by both scientists and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591027187
• ISBN13: 9781591027188
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 249 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A top pick for any interested in Gould's approaches and their origins

Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould was America's best-known natural scientist until his death in 2002, producing monthly essays in a popular natural history publication and winning awards for his books. Most books about Gould cover his science: David F. Prindle's STEPHEN JAY GOULD AND THE POLITICS OF EVOLUTION is the first to be written about his political connections and how they influenced his science career, and provide a fine survey of how Gould's mind worked along both scientific and political paths. A top pick for any interested in Gould's approaches and their origins.

A very good overview

A book of 217 text pages is not enough to do complete justice to the work of Harvard University evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, who died in 2002. This book, by political scientist David Prindle is an excellent start. Prindle limits his investigation to the political connections of Gould's evolutionary work and views, and thus keeps things manageable. As a political scientist, Prindle had a lot of catching up to do to make himself familiar, not just with Gould's work, but with evolutionary biology on a quite detailed level. Without that background, he could not have written this book. This is not an elementary text. Prindle doesn't cover everything, but what he covers is done well. He shows that Gould was not always consistent in his views and he does not hesitate to come down on Gould's side, or on the other, when there seems to be a clear choice to be made on one issue or the other. Chapters are extensively footnoted and the book is very well written, with no typos that I recall.