{"id":920,"date":"2015-02-12T09:17:24","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T09:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/?p=920"},"modified":"2024-11-05T14:33:22","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T14:33:22","slug":"dates-that-changed-the-western-world-1859-and-on-the-origin-of-the-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/2015\/02\/12\/dates-that-changed-the-western-world-1859-and-on-the-origin-of-the-species\/","title":{"rendered":"Dates That Changed The Western World: 1859 and On The Origin of the Species"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-921\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/446\/2018\/05\/640px-charles_darwin_seated_crop.jpg?w=228\" alt=\"\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\" \/>Can a single book change the world? In 1859, Charles Darwin&#8217;s <em>On The Origin of the Species<\/em> became an instant bestseller &#8211; and swiftly took its place as the lightning rod for controversy it has been ever since. Positing his theory of evolution, Darwin&#8217;s book charted the process of natural selection acting upon random mutation, by which a species might adapt to its environment to such an extent that it could become another.<\/p>\n<p>This was not the first time such theories had been rehearsed: Charles Lyell and Richard Owen alike had mooted similar hypotheses, although had done so based rather more squarely in religious theory. Counter-intuitively, it was the scientific community, not the religious one, which first gave Darwin his stiffest challenges, however: <em>On the Origin of the Species<\/em> did not transform science &#8211; and therefore the world &#8211; at a single stroke.<\/p>\n<p>These controversies, however &#8211; widely publicised at the time and, then as now, stoked in the press &#8211; were perhaps responsible for the huge public appetite for Darwin which the publication of<em> On the Origin of the Species<\/em> occasioned. A relatively dry scientific tome in a period of luridly serialised novels, it sold more than 100,000 copies before 1901; it has powered thinking surrounding everything from nineteenth-century debates about poverty and twentieth-century eugenics theories; even more strikingly, it continues to be the focus of debate today, and central to our culture&#8217;s understanding of ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>Can a single book change the world? One thing is for certain: the ideas contained within one can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can a single book change the world? In 1859, Charles Darwin&#8217;s On The Origin of the Species became an instant bestseller &#8211; and swiftly took its place as the lightning [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[778,768],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-dates-that-changed-the-western-world","tag-modern"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3468,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/3468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}