In early 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species—published in Britain in November 1859—became a topic of conversation among a number of New England intellectuals. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau read the Origin. So did Bronson Alcott, the father of Louisa Alcott, and Charles Loring Brace, the founder of the Children’s Aid Society. Two leading scientists also read the Origin: the botanist Asa Gray, who defended Darwin, and the zoologist Louis Agassiz, who attacked Darwin. Now, in The Book That Changed America, Randall Fuller declares that “the Origin did what few books ever do: alter the conversation a society is having about itself.”

Did Darwin’s theory of evolution really “ignite a nation”? It’s hard to say from the evidence Fuller provides in this lucid book because he writes mainly about New England intellectuals. (Indeed, my only quibble with Fuller is that occasionally he adds novelistic touches that are not warranted.) Yet perhaps the subtitle is accurate, for Darwin wrote to Asa Gray: “I assure you I am astonished at the impression my Book has made on many minds.”