Peter J. Bowler

Peter J. Bowler (born 8 October 1944) is a historian of biology who has written extensively on the history of evolutionary thought, the history of the environmental sciences, and on the history of genetics. His 1984 book, Evolution: The History of an Idea is a standard textbook on the history of evolution, and was substantially revised in 2003 and a 25th anniversary edition came in 2009. His 1983 book The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900 describes the scientific and social challenges to Darwinism which led many to abandon the theory in the first part of the twentieth century.