The Huxleys: a revolution in how we see ourselves
Episode description
Across the 19th and 20th centuries, the Huxley family reshaped how we think about humanity and our relationship with the natural world. Within a family of scientists, educators, novelists, mystics, and filmmakers, two men led the way: ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’, the zoologist T.H. Huxley and his grandson and intellectual inheritor, the ecologist and conservationist, Julian Huxley.
From religion to genetics, to human psychology, the Huxleys’ impact was felt across some of the most controversial and significant topics of their day. In studies of the natural world, they contributed to the foundation of the new sciences of ecology and animal conservation.
Adept at writing about themselves in painfully revealing, honest and unprecedented ways, the family’s lives, marriages, successes and failures were also subject to their fascination with emotional, sexual, and psychological experience.
At the RSA, leading historian of science Alison Bashford is joined by historian Thomas Dixon and writer Stuart Jeffries to discuss the impact of three generations of Huxleys, exploring how the roots of the Huxley legacy reach deep into scientific and cultural conversations we are still having today.
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