Book review – Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace

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

The year 2023 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. Best remembered as the father of biogeography, and only relatively recently pulled out of Darwin’s shadow as co-discoverer of the principle of natural selection, he was an all-round fascinating person. I have long wanted to read more about him. Evolutionary biologist, entomologist, and Darwin and Wallace scholar James T. Costa gives an in-depth, intimate, and updated story of his life. This first of three reviews will prepare me for a descent down the rabbit hole on how two scholars independently hit on the mechanism driving evolution.

Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace, written by James T. Costa, published by Princeton University Press in March 2023 (hardback, 552 pages)

In case you have only vaguely heard of Wallace, let me offer you a very brief statement of facts. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913); born in a working-class family; trained as a surveyor; soon developed an interest in botany and entomology; spent four years (1848–1852) in the Amazon collecting animals and plants; lost most of them during a disastrous return journey; soon spent eight years (1854–1862) island hopping around the Malay Archipelago on collecting expeditions that cemented his reputation as a naturalist; had important insights on (prominently) biogeography and evolution; contributed to numerous other disciplines beyond the above two; returned to England to marry late and have three children; had an incredibly prolific scientific career right up to his death; and, finally, raised contemporary eyebrows for championing causes both progressive (e.g. women’s rights and socialism) and unorthodox (e.g. spiritualism). Yes, this was one multi-faceted, interesting character.

But this review is not about retreading Wallace’s life. Given the many other available Wallace biographies (more about those later), why read this one? Because Costa can safely be considered an expert on evolutionary biology and the history of evolutionary thought. Next to three books on Darwin‘s work since 2009, Costa has also studied Wallace’s life and work since 2010, resulting in On the Organic Law of Change (2013); Wallace, Darwin, and the Origin of Species (2014); and co-editorship on An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion (2019); not to mention numerous academic papers and magazine articles. What this means in practice is that Costa provides context, context, context.

As such, he explains the relevance and novelty of Wallace’s ideas at the time (and I am going to be very selective here). For instance, Wallace was one of the first to insist on the recording of accurate location data when collecting animals and plants. When moving east and west in the Malay Archipelago, he thus noticed that the fauna on some neighbouring islands differed sharply, a local division later named the Wallace Line. It undermined geologist Charles Lyell’s idea that environment alone determines distribution and Wallace’s 1880 book Island Life dug deeper into the why. Before continental drift and plate tectonics, land bridges were all the rage though would sometimes have required outlandish proportions to explain observed distributions. Island Life dialled down their explanatory power.

“Given the many other available Wallace biographies, why read this one? Because Costa has studied Wallace’s life and work since 2010. What this means in practice is that he provides context, context, context.”

Speaking of Lyell, some of Wallace’s most underrecognized ideas concern transmutation (as evolution was known back then). Lyell claimed that species were immutable entities and that the fossil record reflected separate rounds of creation. Wallace disagreed; he was never one to shy away from discussion, even with intellectual giants. His then-novel idea that formed the essence of what became known as the Sarawak Law paper was that “every species arises in immediate proximity to a preexisting and closely related species” (p. 158). But how? Wallace’s flash of insight on natural selection, the remarkable confluence of Darwin and Wallace’s ideas, and the case he was building against Lyell are all deeply interesting topics that I am deferring to my next two reviews. Instead, let me briefly consider his take on anthropology. Wallace was fascinated with the indigenous people he encountered and his approach “was nothing less than a natural history of humans” (p. 196), applying the same evolutionary logic he applied to other animals. Against the background of a divided discipline back in London between polygenists (who saw races as separate entities, even species) and monogenists (who saw “races” as variations of a single human species), Wallace hewed closer to the latter.

Costa also provides much historical context on Wallace the person. He is rightly remembered as a humanitarian scholar for whom justice was his lodestar. Utopian socialist Robert Owen, who campaigned for educational and labour reform, left a deep impression. The young Wallace was a regular at the halls of science and mechanics’ institutes that were just then popping up everywhere. These promoted self-improvement through education and soon became community hubs-cum-libraries where working-class people discussed science, politics, and social reform. His full conversion to socialism came much later in life after reading Edward Bellamy’s popular novel Looking Backward which depicted a future world free of class struggle. Wallace was an early advocate of women’s rights, supported the suffragette movement, and more than once campaigned for scholarly societies to allow women in. He also campaigned for land reform, though many of his early survey jobs served ongoing efforts at land enclosure that effectively screwed the poor (Costa provides the requisite background information). It was something he would come to regret, unaware “that he was an accessory to a crime, as he later saw it” (p. 23).

Now, how for some context to the above context? Despite the above character sketch, it would be an oversimplification to celebrate Wallace as “an almost uniquely nonracist, egalitarian Victorian […] who was “woke”” (p. 166) before the rest of us were. Sure, he was respectful towards indigenous people, credited his field assistants (especially Ali), and criticized European civilization. But for all that, he never questioned its intrinsic superiority and his expeditions benefited from the infrastructure of Britain’s global empire. Wherever he went, he could call on officials, transportation networks, and crews of unnamed porters and boatsmen for assistance. And despite his opposition to slavery, he frequently turned a blind eye to slave-holding friends and expats.

“[Wallace] is rightly remembered as a humanitarian scholar for whom justice was his lodestar [but] it would be an oversimplification to celebrate Wallace as “an almost uniquely nonracist, egalitarian Victorian”“

Further commenting on Wallace’s character (here comes more context), Costa admits that his trusting nature could border on the gullible. His interest in spiritualism caused disbelief among his peers, even while they praised his scientific achievements. Costa points out that many science historians forget how spiritualism impregnated Victorian society at all levels; even some of Wallace’s critics “attended séances rather more frequently than would seem warranted for either entertainment value or ghostbusting research” (p. 327). The other faux pas is his opposition to smallpox vaccination campaigns that the British government forced on the poor. Wallace, himself vaccinated, was all about the science, but this was in its infancy in the 19th century. “We cannot hold those who lived in the past to standards based on modern understanding” (p. 353), pleads Costa. Fortunately, we find him on the right side of history where eugenics is concerned, which he denounced as “the meddlesome interference of an arrogant, scientific priestcraft” (p. 490, note 52).

Costa’s writing is lively, occasionally interjected with chatty remarks or witticism that made me chuckle. When Wallace writes that Alexander von Humboldt’s travel narrative gave him a desire to visit the tropics, Costa responds that “Wallace got a “desire to visit the tropics” all right” (p. 46). When Wallace scathingly remarks that indigenous women in New Guinea are “the least engaging specimens of the fair sex” he had ever met, Costa parries that “chances are he was not viewed by the locals as the hottest specimen of white European manhood either” (p. 231). And when only the religious Lyell is receptive to Wallace’s new spiritualist tendencies, Costa imagines how “Darwin could only shake his head at the two of them” (p. 310). I found these a welcome source of levity.

Much more can be said about both Wallace and this wonderful biography, and on some topics even Costa refers readers to in-depth analyses in papers and edited collections. Wallace left behind a mountain of written material for historians. Instead, let me circle back to my first question. Why read this biography? Even before the 2013 centenary of his death saw yet more biographies, we already had a fair few. I have both Raby’s 2001 Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life and Slotten’s 2004 The Heretic in Darwin’s Court on the shelf—unread—and momentarily entertained the idea of a comparative analysis of Wallace biographies. However, with apologies to the reader, I only have so much time. That said, I could not resist skim-reading passages of Heretic because they are of comparable calibre (Heretic larger at 602 pages) and Costa describes it as “indispensable” (p. xi). They largely follow the same beats, sometimes very closely for the well-documented expeditions, but elsewhere emphasize different details. My cursory impression is that Slotten pays more critical attention to Wallace’s spiritualism than Costa, e.g. mentioning his 1910 book The World of Life which marked a further shift towards mysticism which Costa omits. And where Costa in one sentence mentions Wallace died in 1913 after a brief illness, Slotten spends several pages on his final days and the outpouring of grief that followed. One minor criticism I have is that Costa squeezed the last 26 years of Wallace’s still very productive life (more than a quarter!) into one 36-page chapter, where Slotten used 92 pages over four chapters.

“Costa has drawn extensively on the treasure trove of the Wallace Correspondence Project, adding intimate detail from hundreds of letters. His goal of writing an updated biography has been more than realised.”

So, sure, you can read earlier biographies and learn things about Wallace not covered here. Far more important, however, is what Costa adds. Much unpublished information has come to light since the 2013 centenary and Costa has drawn extensively on the treasure trove of the Wallace Correspondence Project (WCP). Back in 1998, biologist and science historian George Beccaloni discovered that Wallace’s grandsons had a large archive of their grandfather’s books and manuscripts. Though Slotten mentions having been allowed to examine some of it (his p. viii), this material (and whatever else the WCP team could find) was only transferred to the London Natural History Museum in 2002 to be digitised, transcribed, annotated, and eventually put online from 2010 onwards. This has allowed Costa to add much intimate detail from hundreds of personal letters.

Given the above, Costa’s stated aim of writing an updated biography has been more than realised; this book is a triumph! I tremendously enjoyed Radical by Nature and was very impressed with the depth of its scholarship. Next to an intimate portrait of this most fascinating scholar, Costa provides much detail on a critical period of scientific development and the social context in which it unfolded.

One matter, in particular, has long fascinated both myself and others: why, when the world was informed that two scholars had independently hit on the same idea of natural selection, have we forgotten Wallace and given Darwin all the credit? Did Wallace just stumble onto it? Did Darwin, as some have claimed, steal certain insights from Wallace? Join me for a double review of On the Organic Law of Change and Wallace, Darwin, and the Origin of Species where I finally dig deeper into these questions.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Radical by Nature