 These internal complexities in the heritage of Darwin’s works have shaped Darwinism into more than one tradition, with pre-existing social and intellectual contexts playing a critical role in the interpretation of Darwin’s achievement. French biology, for example, still pays greater respect to Lamarck than is true in anglophone literature (Laurent [ed.] 1997). Several commentators currently seek to de-emphasize the contrasts between the presumably failed theories of Lamarck and those of Darwin that figure largely in British and American literature, or else see some greater compatibility between a “molecularized” understanding of evolution and Lamarckianism (Gissis &amp; Jablonka [eds] 2011). The long heritage of Kantianism and German Idealism has influenced lines of the German interpretations of Darwin up to the present (Hösle &amp; Illies [eds] 2005). The general importance of prior social and intellectual context in the reception of Darwin’s work is a topic of active research that will be summarized in greater detail below.