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H-NET BOOK REVIEW 
Published by [log in to unmask] (September, 1997) 
 
Mike Hawkins.  _Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 
1860-1945:  Nature as Model and Nature as Threat_.  Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 1997.  x + 344 pp.  Bibliography and 
index.  $69.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-521-57400-5; $27.95 (paper), ISBN 
0-521-57434-X. 
 
Reviewed for H-NEXA by Richard Weikart, California State University, 
Stanislaus 
 
Hawkins provides a keen analysis of Social Darwinism in an important 
and thought-provoking work that will surely become the standard work 
on the subject for some time to come.  It is a superb corrective to 
the fairly popular revisionist interpretation of Social Darwinism 
propagated by Robert Bannister and others.  However, his 
interpretation is not simply a reiteration of the classic Hofstadter 
thesis. 
 
Unlike Hofstadter, who boiled down Social Darwinism to 
_laissez-faire_ economics, racism, militarism, and imperialism, much 
recent scholarship on Social Darwinism has emphasized the varieties 
of Social Darwinism, since thinkers often applied Darwinism to 
social and political thought in contradictory ways--socialists and 
pacifists appealed to Darwinism for support as much as laissez faire 
proponents and militarists.  The beauty of Hawkins' analysis is that 
he takes account of the diversity of political and social views 
espoused by Darwinists, while bringing out the underlying 
commonalities.  He does this by distinguishing between Social 
Darwinism as a fundamental world view and the political and social 
ideologies built on that world view.  He defines Social Darwinism as 
a world view containing the following five beliefs:  1) biological 
laws govern all of nature, including humans, 2) Malthusian 
population pressure produces a struggle for existence, 3) physical 
and mental traits providing an advantage to individuals or species 
would spread, 4)  selection and inheritance would produce new 
species and eliminate others, and 5) natural laws (including the 
four above) extend to human social existence, including morality and 
religion.  Those embracing these fundamental points are Social 
Darwinists, whether they are militarists or pacifists, laissez-faire 
proponents or socialists. 
 
Hawkins admits in his introduction that his work is not a 
comprehensive history of Social Darwinism.  Instead he provides 
in-depth analysis of key Social Darwinists, such as John Fisk and 
William Graham Sumner in the United States, Herbert Spencer and 
Benjamin Kidd in England, Clemence Royer in France, Ernst Haeckel in 
Germany, and Cesare Lombroso in Italy. He also covers the 
relationship of socialists, racists, and militarists to Social 
Darwinism.  His chapter on eugenics is conceptually rich and 
suggestive, but not so strong historically, since he doesn't even 
mention many of the most important figures in the eugenics movement. 
The few eugenicists he analyzes, though, do provide a good 
representation of the movement as a whole.  In his final chapter 
comparing the Nazis' and Italian Fascists' relationship to Social 
Darwinism, Hawkins argues that the Nazis were thoroughly committed 
to Social Darwinism, while the Fascists, with a few exceptions, were 
not. 
 
I expect that Hawkins' interpretation of Spencer as a Darwinist 
rather than a Lamarckian will stir some controversy, for most 
scholars consider Spencer a committed Lamarckian. Hawkins produces 
sufficient evidence to show that Spencer did embrace natural 
selection after 1859, though he continued to emphasize the 
inheritance of acquired characteristics to a greater extent than did 
Darwin.  In his chapter on Spencer and elsewhere Hawkins is 
clear-sighted enough to recognize that in the late nineteenth 
century Darwinian selection was not antithetical to Lamarckian 
inheritance of acquired characteristics (as some scholars 
anachronistically assume).  Many Darwinists--including 
Darwin--synthesized natural selection and the inheritance of 
acquired characteristics.  Unfortunately, Hawkins did not discuss 
Spencer's pre-Darwinian views, so the question remains:  Was Spencer 
a Darwinian of sorts before Darwin published his theory, or was 
there a shift in his thought after Darwin's theory appeared?  We 
need further explication of this. 
 
Because he covers an immense amount of territory in his book, 
specialists in some of the areas he covers (eugenics, Nazism, 
Fascism, Spencer, etc.)  may quibble with his selectivity and some 
may want greater depth in their area of expertise.  But hopefully 
this will not distract from the overall merits of the book.  One 
reason I find this book so exciting is that Hawkins has provided a 
useful definition and analysis of Social Darwinism on which future 
scholarship can build.  Even if one disagrees with some of the 
examples he provides (I question a few of them), or thinks he 
ignores some important thinkers, his work is still useful and can 
serve as a springboard for further study.  It will also serve as a 
useful text in a variety of courses in the history of science and 
intellectual history. 
 
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