Robert M. Young and Darwin Historiography

In a series of seminal essays, Robert M. Young has insisted on the importance of analyzing the broad historical context in which Darwin's biological views were conceived. In this paper, Young's historiographic approach is assessed theoretically rather than historically: attention is focused on a comparison with recent Darwin studies. After some brief notes on Darwin historiography in general, the principal tenets advocated by Young on a programmatic level are described as `contextualism' and `reflexive relativism'. Then the two main sections follow, devoted respectively to examinations of Young's early Darwinian texts, and to his recent writings. Two main historical theses are here discussed separately, and the somewhat irregular nature of Young's Darwinian historiography is defined by means of a limited typology of contextual influence theses. Although Young's programmatic position is accepted as a productive one, the paper concludes by stating that a rather different kind of method, applied in some recent studies, is a more effective approach than his.