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The rediscovery of a curator's lost journal illuminates the astonishing African journey that formed the basis of the Chicago Field Museum's famed collections “Now” Is the Time to Collect tells the fascinating story of the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History's zoological expedition to Africa in 1896, the source of many of the museum's foundational collections and an astounding episode in nineteenth-century science. After the well-publicized extinction of the dodo and Carolina parakeet and the collapse of the American bison population, late nineteenth-century naturalists expected many more vulnerable species to die out with spread of Western-style industrialization. This triggered a race to collect rare species of animals expected soon to be lost forever. Established in 1893, Chicago's ambitious Field Museum aimed to become a global center of study. Zoologist Daniel Giraud Elliot persuaded museum patrons to fund an immediate expedition to British Somaliland (contemporary Somalia). There, his team hunted and killed hundreds of animals for the growing collection. On the trip was groundbreaking taxonomist Carl Akeley. Back in Chicago, Akeley created captivating lifelike dioramas of rare animal groups that enhanced the museum's fame and remain popular to this day. Enriched with illuminated passages from Elliot's journal, only recently rediscovered, “Now” Is the Time to Collect is the first book of its kind by an American museum and a case study in what author Paul D. Brinkman calls “salvage zoology”—the practice of aggressively collecting rare animal specimens for preservation just prior to the birth of the modern conservation movement. It is a riveting account of the expedition, the travelers'experiences in Somalia during its colonial period, and the astonishing origins of one of Chicago's classic museum experiences.

This volume marks a new approach to a seminal work of the modern scientific imagination: Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859). Darwin's central theory of natural selection neither originated nor could be contained, with the parameters of the natural sciences, but continues to shape and challenge our most basic assumptions about human social and political life.Several new readings, crossing the fields of history, literature, sociology, anthropology and history of science, demonstrate the complex position of the text within cultural debates past and present. Contributors examine the reception and rhetoric of the Origin and its influence on systems of classification, the nineteenth-century women's movement, literary culture (criticism and practice) and Hinduism in India. At the same time, a re-reading of Darwin and Malthus offers a constructive critique of our attempts to map the hybrid origins and influences of the text.This volume will be the ideal companion to Darwin's work for all students of literature, social and cultural history and history of science.

Pensato come raccolta dei fecondi contributi proposti al convegno “Organismi, evoluzione e conoscenza”, che ha avuto luogo a Modena nell'aprile del 2023, il volume si è ulteriormente arricchito dei saggi di diversi studiosi interessati alla ricezione, all'interpretazione e alla discussione delle teorie scientifico-evoluzionistiche. Il risultato è uno strumento particolarmente utile per lo studio non solo della diffusione ma anche delle variazioni e dei fraintendimenti che hanno segnato la storia di queste teorie.