Historian Cor Hermans has written a fascinating and highly readable, though rather sizeable, book on social Darwinian thought as it developed from the second half of the nineteenth century onward, mainly under the influence of the work of Darwin himself.

It’s his merit that he has placed Darwin himself clearly in the foreground as originator of the debate on social evolution in the second half of the nineteenth century. Against this there is the drawback that Mr Hermans has not resisted the temptation to walk every side-road he encountered in his long trail of study. He needs quite a lot of space to both distinguish and connect all the diverse currents. (…) In spite of these critical remarks, in my final verdict appreciation for this clever piece of work of Mr Hermans takes precedence.