Which 1942 book by Julian Huxley popularized the modern evolutionary synthesis linking natural selection with genetics?

Julian Huxley’s 1942 book Evolution: The Modern Synthesis popularized the modern evolutionary synthesis.

The modern synthesis united Darwin’s natural selection with Mendelian genetics and findings from population genetics. It explained evolution as changes in the frequencies of inherited variants within populations. Mutation and recombination generate variation, while natural selection, genetic drift, and gene flow alter its distribution.

Huxley’s book reviewed contributions from several disciplines, including genetics, systematics, paleontology, and embryology. Other major architects included Ronald Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, Sewall Wright, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, and George Gaylord Simpson.

The synthesis was not a single experiment or one person’s complete theory. It was a framework developed over decades. Modern evolutionary biology has expanded it with molecular genetics, developmental biology, genomics, and epigenetics, but the central connection between heredity and natural selection remains fundamental.