Celebrated for his famous theory of evolution tracing all of life back to a common ancestor, Charles Darwin held an overlooked passion that fired his belief in life’s unity.The thesis of this book is that Darwin's commitment to the abolition of slavery – his “sacred cause” – led him from a recognition of the shared racial roots of black and white people to the ‘common descent’ of all organisms. This belief in the brotherhood of races – whether animals, plants or people – was the seed that grew into his revolutionary theory.
Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins
by Adrian Desmond
University Of Chicago Press, 2011
