Lakeside Chat #29: “Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace” featuring biologist and naturalist Dr. James T. Costa.

One of the most famed naturalists of the Victorian age by the end of his long life in 1913, Alfred Russel Wallace’s expeditions to remote Amazonia and southeast Asia became the stuff of legend: A collector of thousands of species new to science, he shared in the discovery of natural selection with Darwin and founded the field of evolutionary biogeography. Yet Wallace also courted controversy with nonscientific pursuits from spiritualism to socialism, becoming the archetypal socially engaged scientist tirelessly campaigning for social justice: Land and labor reform, women’s rights, and more. Two hundred years after his birth in 1823, Wallace continues to inspire and instruct. In this talk, Jim Costa celebrates the complex and multifaceted life of Alfred Russel Wallace, the subject of his new book.