The Malay Archipelago

from Steph and Eva

I am reading Alfred Russell Wallace's "The Malay Archipelago". Wallace was somewhat of a co-discoverer of evolution along with Charles Darwin, but he gives all the credit to Darwin. Malay Archipelago is much more interesting to me than Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin because Wallace is much more interested in people, villages, architecture, local crafts and commerce than Darwin was. But, Darwin's schedule was much less flexible owing to the schedule of the Beagle in its surveying mission.

Darwin was several times disgusted by filthy, heathen savages, while Wallace was more tolerant, but still compared the native intelligence and morality of the various ethnic groups as he saw them through his English glasses, so to speak.

I wish I were a better historian and social thinker while reading Wallace because he keeps fretting about the benefits and drawbacks of empire in under the British, especially in India, and under the Dutch in Java and Sumatra. My understanding of the Dutch system (from Wallace) is that it was much like China under Mao, but with a profit motive for the Dutch. At this point in my reading, Wallace is not yet alarmed, but finds the Dutch have curtailed poverty, corruption and hunger. I believe he is thinking about the cost of curtailing these, but will wait to see whether he makes a critical assessment.

Wallace and Darwin studied distribution of similar species on islands, comparing one island to another to the mainland. This is their key to discovering principles of evolution. Wallace was especially interested in beetles and butterflies.