THE BIRTH OF PHYLOGENETIC SYSTEMATICS

HENNIG, WILLI.

Grundzüge einer Theorie der phylogenetischen Systematik. Herausgegeben vom Deutschen Entomologischen Institut Berlin=Friedrichshagen.

Berlin, 1950. 8vo. Original wrappers. A totally clean and fresh copy with virtually no markings or soiling, near mint condition. (8), 370 pp.

The very rare first edition of this landmark work in the development of cladistic systematics.

"Phylogenetic Systematics" (first published in English in 1966), marks a turning point in the history of systematic biology. This highly influential work, in which Hennig argues for the primacy of the phylogenetic system as the general reference system in biology and establishes what we now call evolutionary trees, was very controversial at the time of its appearance and it opened up possibilities for evolutionary biology that have still not been fully explored.

"Though WH was a prisoner-of-war between May until October 1945, he was not held captive in an Allied camp. Rather he was immediately taken into the anti-malaria service of the British troops until his release from captivity. During this time at the end of the war, he wrote down the handwritten draft of his manuscript for the well-known "Grundzüge" (published in 1950)." (The web-site of the Willi Hennig Society). It is under these circumstances that the present landmark in the development of cladistic systematics (which is now considered necessary reading for any systematist and indispensible for any biologist in any way interested in the relationship of organisms) was written. The work was published in a very limited number of copies in the DDR (the political system of which he opposed strongly and outspokenly) and the real impact of it only really came with the first translation of it into English in 1966. From the time of Hennig's original formulation (in the present work) and up until the 1980'ies, Cladistics constituted a minority approach to classification, but in the 1990'ies it quickly became the dominant method of classification in evolutionary biology, which was thus revolutionized by Hennig's work.

"Hennig is best known for developing phylogenetic systematics, a coherent theory of the investigation and presentation of the relations that exist among species. Contrary to the position generally held during his time, Hennig viewed historical inference as a strictly logical and scientific endeavor (Dupuis, 1984). He first summarized his ideas in 1950, in Grundzüge einer Theorie der Phylogenetischen Systematik (Hennig, 1950). Hennig became even more widely known with the publication of an English revision, Phylogenetic Systematics (Hennig, 1966), of the earlier German work." (The web-site of the Willi Hennig Society).

Order-nr.: 41491