Eight Extraordinary Years of Scientific Travel -- Alfred Russel Wallace’s Malay Archipelago

Andrew Berry, Lecturer on Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University

Alfred Russel Wallace, who co-discovered the theory of evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin, was a remarkable scientist-explorer. His eight years of travel in Southeast Asia (1854–1862) greatly influenced his scientific thinking and resulted in the discovery of thousands of new species, as well as a wonderful account of his journeys, The Malay Archipelago. To celebrate the release of a new edition of this classic work, Andrew Berry will tell Wallace’s extraordinary story, discussing how the book originated and how it shaped future generations of scientific travel.