Charles Darwin: Victorian Mythmaker

Historian and biographer Wilson (Victoria) is known for alternative readings on his subjects, and his latest work takes this to an extreme. From the opening sentence, "Darwin was wrong," Wilson builds a case for his subject (1809–82) as a self-promoter who cobbled together "his" theory of evolution from the ideas of others—including Darwin's own grandfather—without due credit. Wilson's claim that Darwin handpicked facts to fit preconceptions is also this book's shortcoming, confusing Darwin's building on previous theories with plagiarism and his reluctance to engage in theology with evasiveness. There are ad hominem swipes: Darwin is weak-willed, a hypochondriac, a habitual liar. And while Wilson doesn't quite blame Darwin for contemporary eugenics, he does implicate "the Darwin brand." He allows that Darwin readily admitted inconsistencies in what was, after all, always labeled a theory, but such acknowledgments are buried deep in the text. Wilson's prose is lively, with extensive research offering a useful road map of the era's emergent science. But his contentious reappraisal of the theory gets lost in its relentless criticism of the man.