Jim Endersby, "The Arrival of the Fittest: Biology's Imaginary Futures, 1900-1935" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Jan 7, 2026

Jim Endersby, a historian of science at the University of Sussex, delves into early 20th-century biological ideas in his book. He explores the lively public engagement with Hugo de Vries's mutation theory, which excited audiences about controllable evolution. Endersby introduces the concept of 'biotopia,' highlighting how writers like H.G. Wells harnessed scientific ideals to craft both utopian and dystopian narratives. The podcast also discusses the intersection of science with movements like feminism and socialism, revealing their influence on societal change.

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ANECDOTE

How The Book Began

Jim Endersby discovered his book's origin while researching Enothera and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland.
He traced how a forgotten mutation theory circulated from labs into popular utopian fiction.

INSIGHT

Mutation Theory Explained

Hugo de Vries's mutation theory proposed rapid, mass appearance of new forms during 'mutation periods.'
That promised experimental control of evolution and anticipated modern genetic-engineering fantasies.

INSIGHT

Defining Biotopia

Endersby coins 'biotopia' for futures built on biological remaking that blur utopia and dystopia.
Biotopia treats nature, including human nature, as malleable raw material for scientific design.

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The Arrival of the Fittest: Biology’s Imaginary Futures, 1900–1935 by Jim Endersby

In the early twentieth century, varied audiences took biology out of the hands of specialists and transformed it into mass culture, transforming our understanding of heredity in the process.
In the early twentieth century communities made creative use of the new theories of heredity in circulation at the time, including the now largely forgotten mutation theory of Hugo de Vries. Science fiction writers, socialists, feminists, and utopians are among those who seized on the amazing possibilities of rapid and potentially controllable evolution. De Vries’s highly respected scientific theory only briefly captured the attention of the scientific community, but its many fans appropriated it for their own wildly imaginative ends. Writers from H.G. Wells and Edith Wharton to Charlotte Perkins Gilman, J.B.S. Haldane, and Aldous Huxley created a new kind of imaginary future, which Jim Endersby calls the biotopia. It took the ambiguous possibilities of biology—utopian and dystopian—and reimagined them in ways that still influence the public’s understanding of the life sciences. The Arrival of the Fittest recovers the fascinating, long-forgotten origins of ideas that have informed works of fiction from Brave New World to the X-Men movies, all while reflecting on the lessons—positive and negative—that this period might offer us.

Jim Endersby is professor of the history of science at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Orchid: A Cultural History, Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science, and A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

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