Naturalist, explorer and television presenter Steve Backshall chooses Alfred Russel Wallace as a history hero <\/p>
Alfred Russel Wallace was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist. Besides independently conceiving the idea of evolution through natural selection at around the same time as Charles Darwin, he explored the Amazon river basin and the Malay Archipelago, collecting thousands of specimens which he wrote about in bestselling books such as The Malay Archipelago<\/em> (1869). Often dubbed \u2018the father of biogeography\u2019, he died in Dorset, aged 90.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> I found a well-worn copy of his book The Malay Archipelago<\/em> in a second-hand bookshop while travelling around south-east Asia in 1990. I read it from cover to cover in a couple of weeks and it was a real watershed moment for me. He\u2019s undoubtedly the human being in history I\u2019d most like to spend a few minutes with.<\/p>\n He had a big personality and a real lust for life, but unlike so many of his contemporaries, did not come from a privileged background; he had to work for everything he achieved. There were so many different facets to the man: he was an explorer, anthropologist and one of the first conservationists, as well as a hunter. His writing is also very different in style to Darwin\u2019s On the Origin of Species<\/em><\/a>, which I found a real slog. In contrast, Wallace\u2019s books are characterised by derring-do and adrenaline, reflecting the fact that he was someone who wanted adventure from life.<\/p>\n Until reading The Malay Archipelago<\/em>, the only things I\u2019d read with the same sense of excitement were fictional. But Wallace actually led the life of an explorer, collecting more than 100,000 specimens of fauna and flora, which is absolutely insane. The subject of the book \u2013 the Malay Archipelago \u2013 was still quite hard to visit when I travelled there in 1990, yet he was visiting the same places more than a century earlier with fewer resources, and nobody to help him if he got into trouble.<\/p>\n That\u2019s partly why he\u2019s such a hero to me. Furthermore, he lived alongside local people and saw much to admire about them \u2013 not the sort of thing you\u2019d have expected of an Englishman at a time when British colonialism was at its height and the white man\u2019s sense of superiority was rife. The way he described nature was also very modern \u2013 which, again, was unlike Darwin, who examined species in a dry, methodical way.<\/p>\n Yes, I\u2019ve done a lot of exploratory expeditions, too, and even walked the same trails that he walked \u2013 although his achievements make mine look very small indeed. I suppose a key contrast is that Yes. He\u2019s still well known in the fields of zoology and natural history<\/a>, as well as in Malaysia (where you\u2019ll find Wallace orchids and even flying frogs named in his honour). But he\u2019s largely forgotten among the wider public in his homeland.<\/p>\n Steve Backshall is a naturalist and explorer best known for presenting the BBC television series Deadly 60 and books including Deep Blue: My Ocean Journeys (Witness Books). For details of his forthcoming tour, visit stevebackshall.com<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen did you first hear about Wallace?<\/h3>\n
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What kind of man was he?<\/h3>\n
What made him a hero?<\/h3>\n
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Can you see any parallels between his life and your own?<\/h3>\n
Does he deserve to be better known today?<\/h3>\n