Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 paper on the subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin's earlier writings on the topic.

Chief's house and rice-shed in a Sumatran village
Book Excerpts

The Races of Man in the Malay Archipelago

This excerpt provides a full account by Alfred Russel Wallace of the races of mankind inhabiting the Malay Archipelago, for which he primarily divides them into the Malayan and the Papuan or Polynesian races, during his eight years’ journey. The account includes their chief physical and mental characteristics, their affinities with each other and with surrounding tribes, their migrations, and their probable origin.