Publisher's Synopsis
As Thompson shows, the tortuous path from Darwin's brilliant formulation to today's robust and vibrant model is filled with intrigue. Evolutionary theory has become, in many respects, the center of biological science, and its maturation is an indication of a larger and more sophisticated scientific understanding more generally. But this development was not easily won, a point Thompson makes clear as he takes readers from one stage of the theory's maturation to the next, detailing all that went into the development of what most of us now take for granted as a basic-and beautiful-principle of life.