From Life's Splendid Drama . As routine as this might seem, it unsettles some standard historical accounts of the Darwinian era. The richness and attraction of the book lie in the intertwining analyses that Bowler presents. One is historiographic, beginning with his complaint that historians have neglected the work in biology that dominated the past century. Here the popular interest is closer to the mark than our traditional scholarship.
Evolution means that life has a history, and drawing the tree of life has been a central enterprise.
He knows the answer, of course, for his own previous work has been in that realm. Selection was Darwin's most startling innovation, and the account of its fading and resurgence in the mid-20th century is a rich tale of the workings of science. Historians will find much to ponder in a long, provocative second chapter that takes to task this focus on selection's role. The technique is old-fashioned, but this is no complaint. His text is animated by an absorbing regard for the details and intricacies of past science.