Industrializing Organisms: Introducing Evolutionary History

Scientists have developed a featherless chicken designed to make industrial chicken production more efficient, while specially trained Pacific bottlenose dolphins are being deployed in the Persian Gulf to disarm mines and protect our Navy. Everyone knows Darwin’s theory of natural selection, but what about his idea of artificial selection--how humans, not nature, rework natural organisms to meet our needs? Industrializing Organisms brings us to the threshold of the new field of evolutionary history--from the mobilization of war horses in the 19th century to today’s engineered plants and manipulated animals.

Susan Schrepfer is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University and Director of the Institute for Secondary Teachers
Philip Scranton is the Board of Governors Professor of History at Rutgers University, and Director of Research at the Hagley Museum and Library.