cover image Alfred Russel Wallace in the Amazon: Footsteps in the Forest

Alfred Russel Wallace in the Amazon: Footsteps in the Forest

Sandra Knapp. Natural History Museum (IPG, dist.), $13.95 trade paper (184p) ISBN 978-0-565-09330-3

In 1858, while collecting specimens in the Malay Archipelago, Alfred Russel Wallace sent Charles Darwin a short manuscript detailing the concept of natural selection. The note spurred Darwin to publish On the Origin of Species the following year. Insights with the import of natural selection don’t arise ex-nihilo, and botanist Knapp, in this short, attractive volume, helps us explore how Wallace developed his conclusions. Wallace spent four years, 1848–1852, carefully exploring Brazil’s Amazon basin. Knapp combines some of her own experiences in the Amazon with Wallace’s writings from his journals and letters to examine his first trip abroad as a naturalist. She notes that “[Wallace’s] great skill at seeing patterns and in linking isolated pieces of observation into a coherent whole made him the first real evolutionary biogeographer.” Disaster struck Wallace on his voyage back to England as the ship he was on caught fire and sank. All of the specimens and possessions he had with him were lost at sea except for a metal box containing drawings he made of tropical palms and fish; these 62 drawings are included here, adding depth and richness to the book. Knapp’s easy read sheds much-deserved light on one of biology’s luminaries. Illus. (Dec.)