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In the mid-1850s, no scientist in the British Empire was more visible than Richard Owen. Mentioned in the same breath as Newton and championed as Britain's answer to France's Cuvier and Germany's von Humboldt, Owen was, as the "Times" declared in 1856, the most 'distinguished man of science in the country'. But a century and a half later, Owen remains largely obscured by the shadow of the most famous Victorian naturalist of all, Darwin. Publicly marginalized by his contemporaries for his critique of natural selection, Owen suffered personal attacks that undermined his credibility long after his name faded from history.
With this innovative biography, Nicolaas Rupke resuscitates Owen's reputation. Arguing that Owen should no longer be judged by the evolution dispute that figured in only a minor part of his work, Rupke stresses context, emphasizing the importance of places and practices in the production and reception of scientific knowledge. Dovetailing with the recent resurgence of interest in Owen's life and work, Rupke's book brings the forgotten naturalist back into the canon of the history of science and demonstrates how much biology existed with, and without, Darwin.
Nicolaas Rupke is Lower Saxony research professor of the history of science at G#ttingen University and the author of &iAlexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography&i, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
This is not a standard biography in the traditional sense, but a marvelous interrogation of one of Victorian Britain's major scientists. It succeeds in capturing the remarkable and multifaceted career of Richard Owen himself, while at the same time opening up the entire culture of British natural history in the nineteenth century. An outstanding work. - David Livingstone, Queen's University Belfast"
