Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, a popularising 1942 book by Julian Huxley, set out his vision of the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology of the mid-20th century. It was enthusiastically reviewed in academic biology journals.

Sir Julian Sorell Huxley was a British evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. He was secretary of the Zoological Society of London (1935–1942), the first Director of UNESCO, a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund, the president of the British Eugenics Society (1959–1962), and the first president of the British Humanist Association.