Professor Ted Benton To Give Lecture on Alfred Russell Wallace
Talk to be hosted by the Ealing Branch of the Historical Association
Alfred Russell Wallace
January 26, 2023
The next meeting of the Ealing Branch of the Historical Association will include a talk on the Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace.
On Tuesday 14 February at 7.30 pm at Ealing Green Church, The Green (W5 5QT) Professor Ted Benton, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Essex University, will give a lecture entitled 'Alfred Russel Wallace, Natural Selection and after'.
Professor Benton pioneered the integration of ecological understanding with social theory. He has been an active field naturalist since childhood and is author or co-author of eight books on entomological topics, in addition to his academic publications and a book on Wallace, Alfred Russel Wallace: Evolutionist, Explorer and Public Intellectual (2013) Manchester: Siri Scientific.
It is widely known but too often forgotten that Wallace was co-founder with Darwin of the modern view of evolution by natural selection. This talk will review Wallace’s early travels and his independent ‘discovery’ of natural selection. Wallace lived for more than a half century after that moment and the talk will look at how he continued to make important contributions to evolutionary theory, developing the idea of natural selection, and contesting Darwin’s concept of sexual selection, engaging politically in the campaign for land nationalisation, supporting women’s rights and home rule for India, as well as envisioning a future socialist society.
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