Gómez (Latin American literature, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder) has compiled and edited essays, letters, and fiction from an eclectic group of writers including Charles Darwin and contemporary Argentinean scientists and men of letters. These excerpts highlight the actual controversy that took place in Argentina between supporters and opponents of evolution after publication of the Origin (1859), and contrasts it with ... Read morea fictional feud between Darwinists and anti-Darwinists, first portrayed in Eduardo Holmberg's novel Two Parties in Conflict (1875). That work pictured an elderly Darwin revisiting Argentina to explain his theory to both groups; this is not entirely credible because after Darwin returned to England, he did not travel far and shunned controversy. When Darwin's ideas reached Argentina, the foundations of scientific and "sociological" thought in Argentina were shaken. Gómez suggests that the confrontation between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Henry Huxley in 1860 at Oxford University
meetings Darwin scrupulously avoided, leaving Huxley to battle the anti-Darwinians alone
assisted in the dissemination of Darwinism. The observations of William Henry Hudson concerning the pampas woodpecker and Darwin's responses perhaps are the most relevant natural history passages included here. This anthology is best suited for scholars of Latin American literature. Summing Up: Recommended.
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