Malaprop’s is pleased to partner with the North Carolina Arboretum to present this event.
Attendance at the Arboretum is free but registration is required before Wednesday, July 19th. Please click here for more details and registration. Registrants will receive confirmation and additional information from the NC Arboretum.
This event includes a book signing and copies of Radical by Nature will be available for purchase on site from Malaprop’s Bookstore. After the signing, take advantage of ArborEvening in the Arboretum’s beautiful gardens until 8 PM!
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) was perhaps the most famed naturalist of the Victorian age. His expeditions to remote Amazonia and southeast Asia were the stuff of legend. A collector of thousands of species new to science, he shared in the discovery of natural selection and founded the discipline of evolutionary biogeography. Radical by Nature tells the story of Wallace’s epic life and achievements, from his stellar rise from humble origins to his complicated friendship with Charles Darwin and other leading scientific lights of Britain to his devotion to social causes and movements that threatened to alienate him from scientific society.
James Costa draws on letters, notebooks, and journals to provide a multifaceted account of a revolutionary life in science as well as Wallace’s family life. He shows how the self-taught Wallace doggedly pursued bold, even radical ideas that caused a seismic shift in the natural sciences, and how he also courted controversy with nonscientific pursuits such as spiritualism and socialism. Costa describes Wallace’s courageous social advocacy of women’s rights, labor reform, and other important issues. He also sheds light on Wallace’s complex relationship with Darwin, describing how Wallace graciously applauded his friend and rival, becoming one of his most ardent defenders. Weaving a revelatory narrative with the latest scholarship, Radical by Nature paints a mesmerizing portrait of a multifaceted thinker driven by a singular passion for science, a commitment to social justice, and a lifelong sense of wonder.
James T. Costa is professor of biology and executive director of Western Carolina University’s Highlands Biological Station. His books include Darwin’s Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory; Wallace, Darwin, and the Origin of Species; The Annotated Origin; and most recently Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace. He is the recipient of the Alfred Russel Wallace Medal of the Wallace Memorial Fund and the 2023 Stephen Jay Gould Prize of the Society for the Study of Evolution