Books

Darwin by Adrian Desmond & James Moore. Norton Books Inc; Norton paperback edition (1992) ASIN: 0446515892

The Darwin Legend by James Moore; Baker Book House; (1994) ASIN: 0801063183


History, Humanity and Evolution
Cambridge University Press; New edition (2002) ISBN: 0521524784

Religion in Victorian Britain St. Martin's Press (1989) ISBN: 0719029449


A brilliant scholar and fascinating speaker, James Moore ranges widely over the historical fields of science and religion.
 
A native of Chicago, Moore holds degrees in science, divinity, and history, with a PhD from Manchester University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. Since 1975 he has taught for the    
Open University in England, where he is Reader in History of Science and Technology. Moore has held visiting professorships at Notre Dame, McMaster and Harvard universities.

Moore's bestselling biography Darwin (written with Adrian Desmond) was hailed by Stephen Jay Gould as "unquestionably the finest ever written" about the naturalist. It won the 1991 James Tait Black Memorial Prize in Britain, the 1993 Watson Davis Prize of the History of Science Society in the USA, and the 1997 Dingle Prize of the British Society for the History of Science. German and Italian translations have appeared, the latter taking the grand prize for biography in the 1993 Premio Letterario Giovanni Comisso. The Portuguese Darwin was published in Brazil in 1995 and the Japanese in 1999. A Russian pirate translation has been seen. In 2001 Darwin was adapted for drama in the first program of the award-winning PBS series "Evolution."

In The Darwin Legend (1994) Moore gave a lively account of Darwin's posthumous reputation with the first-ever exposé of the evangelical urban-myth that Darwin gave up evolution on his deathbed and converted to Christanity. Moore's study of Protestant efforts to "come to terms with Darwin," The Post-Darwinian Controversies, remains a classic; its ground-breaking analysis of the Victorian "conflict" over evolution has transformed the way scholars everywhere think about "science and religion."

          Moore has edited a comprehensive sourcebook, Religion in Victorian Britain (Manchester University Press, 1988), and a collection of original essays, History, Humanity and Evolution.

          Moore joined Desmond to write and present `The Devil's Chaplain,' a fifty-minute BBC documentary based on their book. In October 1991 it achieved `pick of the day' and `pick of the week' across the British national press and since then has been transmitted around the world. Moore has scripted and presented many other BBC talks and documentaries, and given scores of radio and TV interviews in Britain, Australia, Europe, and the United States. He appeared in BBC and All Japan Network TV specials, and in the Arts and Entertainment Network's Biography documentary on Darwin. The Learning Channel filmed his Harvard graduate seminar for the lead program in its 1993-94 series, `Great Books that Moved the World,' and he was a consultant-contributor to the 2001 WGBH/Clear Blue Skies `Evolution' documentary series for PBS.

          Moore has been a consultant to The Encyclopedia of Evolution and the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, for American high school students. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the History of Biology and the British Journal for the History of Science, and has worked steadily with the Darwin Correspondence project at Cambridge University Library. He was a consulting editor for The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists, and was a contributing member of
The Fundamentalism Project sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Moore says: "Charles Darwin was not only respectable; he was determined to remain so. He grew up wealthy and advantaged; natural history interested him more than the Church of England, for which he prepared at Cambridge University. He went on the five-year voyage of the Beagle as company for the aristocratic captain Robert FitzRoy. (Naval custom prevented the captain from dining with his own officers.) Darwin exploited the opportunity, hoping to make `even the most humble contribution' to science.
"But he feared evolution and natural selection would disrupt his comfortable relationships with more traditionally minded people (not least his wife Emma), and he developed his theories in private. For twenty years he put off publication, dreading the controversy that would follow. His conclusions ran counter to dominant beliefs of the time: that God created living species more or less in their present forms, and that no natural process could explain the divine creation method.
"Of course many older and more conservative churchmen and scientific leaders despised On the Origin of Species when it appeared in 1859. Magazines mocked Darwin with caricatures. But many young and rising scientific stars embraced evolution; and contrary to myth, the Origin of Species was taken very seriously by all sides. By the time of Darwin's death in 1882, his theories had become so respectable that churchmen and politicians of all parties joined hands to lay his remains in Britain's greatest national shrine, Westminster Abbey."
This event is FREE and open to the public

Alan Rocke, director
216-368-2614

A brilliant scholar and fascinating speaker, James Moore ranges widely over the historical fields of science and religion.
 
A native of Chicago, Moore holds degrees in science, divinity, and history, with a PhD from Manchester University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. Since 1975 he has taught for the    
Open University in England, where he is Reader in History of Science and Technology. Moore has held visiting professorships at Notre Dame, McMaster and Harvard universities.

Moore's bestselling biography Darwin (written with Adrian Desmond) was hailed by Stephen Jay Gould as "unquestionably the finest ever written" about the naturalist. It won the 1991 James Tait Black Memorial Prize in Britain, the 1993 Watson Davis Prize of the History of Science Society in the USA, and the 1997 Dingle Prize of the British Society for the History of Science. German and Italian translations have appeared, the latter taking the grand prize for biography in the 1993 Premio Letterario Giovanni Comisso. The Portuguese Darwin was published in Brazil in 1995 and the Japanese in 1999. A Russian pirate translation has been seen. In 2001 Darwin was adapted for drama in the first program of the award-winning PBS series "Evolution."

In The Darwin Legend (1994) Moore gave a lively account of Darwin's posthumous reputation with the first-ever exposé of the evangelical urban-myth that Darwin gave up evolution on his deathbed and converted to Christanity. Moore's study of Protestant efforts to "come to terms with Darwin," The Post-Darwinian Controversies, remains a classic; its ground-breaking analysis of the Victorian "conflict" over evolution has transformed the way scholars everywhere think about "science and religion."

          Moore has edited a comprehensive sourcebook, Religion in Victorian Britain (Manchester University Press, 1988), and a collection of original essays, History, Humanity and Evolution.

          Moore joined Desmond to write and present `The Devil's Chaplain,' a fifty-minute BBC documentary based on their book. In October 1991 it achieved `pick of the day' and `pick of the week' across the British national press and since then has been transmitted around the world. Moore has scripted and presented many other BBC talks and documentaries, and given scores of radio and TV interviews in Britain, Australia, Europe, and the United States. He appeared in BBC and All Japan Network TV specials, and in the Arts and Entertainment Network's Biography documentary on Darwin. The Learning Channel filmed his Harvard graduate seminar for the lead program in its 1993-94 series, `Great Books that Moved the World,' and he was a consultant-contributor to the 2001 WGBH/Clear Blue Skies `Evolution' documentary series for PBS.

          Moore has been a consultant to The Encyclopedia of Evolution and the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, for American high school students. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the History of Biology and the British Journal for the History of Science, and has worked steadily with the Darwin Correspondence project at Cambridge University Library. He was a consulting editor for The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists, and was a contributing member of
The Fundamentalism Project sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Moore says: "Charles Darwin was not only respectable; he was determined to remain so. He grew up wealthy and advantaged; natural history interested him more than the Church of England, for which he prepared at Cambridge University. He went on the five-year voyage of the Beagle as company for the aristocratic captain Robert FitzRoy. (Naval custom prevented the captain from dining with his own officers.) Darwin exploited the opportunity, hoping to make `even the most humble contribution' to science.
"But he feared evolution and natural selection would disrupt his comfortable relationships with more traditionally minded people (not least his wife Emma), and he developed his theories in private. For twenty years he put off publication, dreading the controversy that would follow. His conclusions ran counter to dominant beliefs of the time: that God created living species more or less in their present forms, and that no natural process could explain the divine creation method.
"Of course many older and more conservative churchmen and scientific leaders despised On the Origin of Species when it appeared in 1859. Magazines mocked Darwin with caricatures. But many young and rising scientific stars embraced evolution; and contrary to myth, the Origin of Species was taken very seriously by all sides. By the time of Darwin's death in 1882, his theories had become so respectable that churchmen and politicians of all parties joined hands to lay his remains in Britain's greatest national shrine, Westminster Abbey."
Books

Darwin by Adrian Desmond & James Moore. Norton Books Inc; Norton paperback edition (1992) ASIN: 0446515892

The Darwin Legend by James Moore; Baker Book House; (1994) ASIN: 0801063183


History, Humanity and Evolution
Cambridge University Press; New edition (2002) ISBN: 0521524784

Religion in Victorian Britain St. Martin's Press (1989) ISBN: 0719029449