Richard Owen (Critical Lives)

Richard Owen (Critical Lives)

Patrick Armstrong
$22.00
Publication Date: September 22nd, 2023
Publisher:
Reaktion Books
ISBN:
9781789147629
Pages:
168
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Description

A biography of the provocative nineteenth-century English naturalist.
 
Brilliant, hard-working, and immensely productive, the naturalist Richard Owen was a great ambassador for science and played an outsized role in shaping London’s Natural History Museum. Still, Owen was a provocative bully, accused of plagiarism, and the only man Charles Darwin claimed to hate since Owen staunchly opposed his ideas about natural selection despite sharing similar views himself. This biography gives an account of Owen’s life and work and offers some speculation about the reasons behind his controversial behavior and strained relationships.

About the Author

Patrick Armstrong taught geography and ecology at the University of Western Australia for twenty-eight years.

Praise for Richard Owen (Critical Lives)

"[Richard Owen] was a scientific colossus . . . Readers may not leave with feelings of admiration for the man himself, but they will surely come to appreciate his central role in the vibrant enterprise of natural history in the 1800s."
— Natural History

"British naturalist Richard Owen was at times kind and sensitive, at other times vindictive and even dishonest. . . . The author expertly analyzes the British social structure during Owen's day, which of course shaped some of his behavior. . . . Recommended."
— Choice

"In this lively and sure-footed biography, distinguished historian of science Patrick Armstrong brilliantly brings a lifetime of scholarship to the task of explicating why Victorian-era palaeontologist and Charles Darwin collaborator and detractor Richard Owen remains worthy of our attention. A fascinating study!"
— Tom Chaffin, author of 'Odyssey: Charles Darwin, the Beagle, and the Voyage that Changed the World'

"Armstrong’s biography accomplishes its admirable purpose—describing in considerable detail Owen’s many accomplishments and contrasting them with his disagreeable nature."
— Geoffrey Martin, Southern Connecticut State University

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