From its inception, Darwin's central theory of natural selection could not be contained within the parameters of the natural sciences. To the present day it continues to challenge the most basic assumptions about human social and political life. This text presents seven readings, crossing the fields of history, literature, sociology, anthropology and history of science, which demonstrate the complex position of "The Origin of Species" within cultural debates past and present. Contributors examine the reception and rhetoric of the work, and its influence on systems of classification, the 19th-century women's movement, literary culture (criticism and practice) and hinduism in India. At the same time a re-reading of Darwin and Malthus offers a critique of attempts to map the hybrid origins and influences of the text.