This volume not only offers an intellectual biography of one of the most important biologists and social thinkers of the 20th century, but also illuminates the development of evolutionary studies in Russia and in the West. Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975), a creator of the evolutionary synthesis and the author of its first modern statement, Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937), founded modern population genetics and wrote many popular books on such topics as human evolution, race and racism equality, and human destiny. Devoted to an analysis of the historical, scientific and cultural dimensions of Dobzhansky's life and thought, this study contains essays by historians, biologists and philosophers, who address the full span of his career in Russia and the USA.