<p>This narrative is a fascinating examination of the way that many scientists and politicians have sought to use Charles Darwin’s ideas to solve social problems or to bolster political ideologies. Darwin not only sparked a revolution in science, but also radically changed the way millions of people thought about themselves, their societies, and their values. The evolutionary science he gave birth to acquired a political dimension from the outset, one with a deeply troubling and ongoing impact on the world in which we live. Social Darwinism, eugenics, and scientific racialismwhose adherents have all claimed Charles Darwin as their inspirationare associated with some of the darkest episodes in our recent past. Sewell’s beautifully crafted narrative shows us what drove people to put a black man on display in a zoo, forcibly sterilize a pair of innocent teenage sisters, lock up a British girl for 18 years for a petty theft, murder disabled people in Nazi Germany, and slam shut America’s "Golden Door." In a world where the gene becomes ever more central, the fresh and stimulating arguments presented here make this an explosive, essential, and utterly intriguing book.</p>

The Political Gene: How Darwin's Ideas Changed Politics

Science & Math

Sewell, Dennis

History & Philosophy

Pan/Macmillan

A fascinating examination of the way that many scientists and politicians have sought to use Charles Darwin's ideas to solve social problems, or to bolster political ideologiesCharles Darwin not only sparked a revolution in science, but gave birth to ideas that acquired a political dimension from the outset, one with a deeply troubling and ongoing impact. Social Darwinism, eugenics, and scientific racialismwhose adherents have all claimed Charles Darwin as their inspirationbecame associated with some of the darkest episodes in our recent past. This beautifully crafted narrative follows the thread of theory and the historical footprints left by a myriad cast of key characters to tell an often shocking and sometimes heartbreaking story. This book shows us what drove people to put a black man on display in a zoo, forcibly sterilize a pair of innocent teenage sisters, lock up a British girl for 18 years for a petty theft, murder disabled people in Nazi Germany, and slam shut America’s "Golden Door." In a world where the gene becomes ever more central, the fresh and stimulating arguments presented here make this an explosive, essential, and utterly intriguing book.

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

In the course of the 20th century Britain's Catholics have made a long journey from the margins of society through gradual acceptance and respectability to positions of great influence and power in public life. Dennis Sewell charts that journey through the lives of the Catholic men and women whose voices, whether in politics, journalism, literature or the arts, have made a distinctively Catholic contribution to our national conversation. From the terraces of Celtic Park to the country houses of the old recusant families, from the Knights of Malta to the Catholic peace movement, the author explores today's Catholic community in all its social variety and traces the lineaments of a contemporary Catholic identity. Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton, Christopher Dawson, David Jones, Eric Gill, Ronald Knox, Edith Sitwell, Evelyn Waugh, Katherine Asquith, Tom Burns, Graham Greene, Barbara Ward, the Dowager Lady Hesketh, Paul Johnson, Hugo Young, Charles Moore, Cristina Odone, Lord Longford, Clare Short, Michael Portillo, Ann Widdecombe, Germaine Greer, Cardinals Hume and Winning, Michele Roberts, Mark Lawson, Harry Enfield and Richard Coles are among the many Catholics, cradle and convert, pious and "lapsed", who join this procession down the years. And what of Tony Blair? Why does he hesitate on the threshold of the Roman Church when so much of his "Third Way" agenda has moved on to ground already staked out by Catholic social teaching? What are the prospects for a Catholic revival? Is Catholicism merely a fashionable, nostalgic accessory, as its critics allege, or the only "ism" to have survived the 20th century intact?

Catholics: Britains Largest Minority

Religion & Spirituality

Religious Studies

VIKING

A New Model Army

Yardley, Michael

Europe

Virgin Books

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Books by Sewell, Dennis