8-minute read
keywords: evolutionary biology, history of science

Having just reviewed James T. Costa’s biography of Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, I was keen to read more about one of the most remarkable episodes in the history of science: how two scholars independently hit on the same idea (evolution by natural selection) and how history has largely forgotten one of them. An important piece of evidence to support this claim is one of several notebooks that Wallace kept during his journeys. In On the Organic Law of Change, Costa unlocks this little gem for a broad audience by providing a facsimile, transcription, and a mountain of annotations to place this work in its historical context. You are getting a two-for-one, as I am reviewing this book simultaneously with its companion book Wallace, Darwin, and the Origin of Species, a book I have long been meaning to read.

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