Paper: Homing In: Alfred Russel Wallace’s Homes in Britain (1852 to 1913)

I have just made my illustrated article on Alfred Russel Wallace's homes in Britain available online.

This article--published in The Linnean, vol. 30, no. 2 (October 2014)--set out to fix with a greater degree of accuracy where and when he lived at each home. The intention is that this will act as the first stage of a larger study of how his choice of residence affected his thinking--if indeed it did.

Anybody who has an interest in a similar project with another individual or with Wallace, please do contact me. I would be very interested to hear what you have done or are doing.

Here is the introduction from the article:

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) lived a life filled with innovative, inspiring and idiosyncratic intellectual endeavour. Having independently codiscovered the theory of natural selection in 1858 with Charles Darwin, he also pioneered the study of animal distribution as the ‘father of biogeography’ as well as innumerable other achievements within the scientific and socio-political realms.

PAPER: "Prometheus Unbound?: Alfred Russel Wallace, Vaccination Acts and the ‘Progress Problem’ in the late-Nineteenth Century" by Ahren Lester

I have just made my paper entitled "Prometheus Unbound?: Alfred Russel Wallace, Vaccination Acts and the ‘Progress Problem’ in the late-Nineteenth Century" available on Academia.edu. Here is the abstract:

The numerous Vaccination Acts passed between 1840 and 1907 were innovations in every sense of the word. They heralded a new approach to the role of the state in the population’s health. They consolidated the new relationship between the state and medical science. They also ultimately brought forth a new term: ‘conscientious objector.’ For us—sitting in the comfort of the twenty-first century—this innovation was unquestionably a boon to humanity. Smallpox is all but eradicated. In this regard, state-directed schemes such as the Vaccination Acts were key vectors of this victory over one of the great scourges of humanity.

PAPER: Uneasy Bedfellows: Alfred Russel Wallace and Nineteenth-century 'Socialist Darwinism'

I have published a paper on whether or not Alfred Russel Wallace's socialism was incompatible with his evolutionism entitled: 'Uneasy Bedfellows: Alfred Russel Wallace and Nineteenth-century 'Socialist Darwinism'. Here is the abstract:

This paper's object is to clarify the relationship between Alfred Russel Wallace's (1823-1913) socialism and evolutionism. This paper contends that although conflicts emerge between Wallace's socialism and Darwinism through the issues of the role of Malthusianism, the perfectibility of man and the role of individualism, he remained committed to the Darwinian Theory. Indeed, it will argue that, rather than undermining his belief in Darwinism, Wallace's socialism evolved within the new intellectual conditions created by the 'Darwinian Revolution.' This paper argues that intellectual exchange between political thought and science enriched both, and concludes that to erect any barrier between the two distorts the historical and intellectual reality.

It can be accessed either from my Academa.edu page or from the original Reinvention site.