“Croce’s work is significant and valuable. Well written and highly readable, it constitutes a fine model of cultural biography, provides fresh insight into the relation between science and religion in nineteenth-century America, and offers a new and potentially fruitful interpretation of Victorian intellectual life.”—Journal of Religious History
“An illuminating look at the intellectual career of William James.”—Isis
“Croce’s book is a splendid account of the impact of the second scientific revolution, 'the shock of Darwin,' on the thought of William James. This carefully documented intellectual history provides all of the important positive influences on James as well as the lofty idealisms that had to be abandoned in the wake of Darwin.”—CHOICE
“Croce has written a fascinating account of the conflicts and turmoil of the American nineteenth century, alerting the reader to seminal scenes of contradictions in the shaping of the overall image of this decisive phase in the making of American cultural history.”-—Journal of American History
“Croce’s book is a lively and nuanced contextualization of William James, the decline of certainty, and the rise of probabilistic thinking that will be of great interest to readers in a variety of disciplines.”—George Cotkin, author of William James, Public Philosopher
“Croce’s perceptive and subtle exploration of William James’s intellectual coming of age deepens our understanding not only of James but also of his intellectual circle and indeed of the post-Darwinian universe of ideas. A beautifully crafted and richly rewarding book.”—Paul Boyer, University of Wisconsin
“Croce has given us a lively and valuable study of the troubled intellectual world that William James inhabited and made more habitable. The book provides new, more detailed and personalized, evidence that religion and science in James’s day suffered not merely quarrels and reconciliations but, more profoundly, a common agonzied experience — the loss of meaning.”—William R. Hutchison, Harvard University
