On the Origin of Species the publication of "On the Origin of Species" and the bicentenary of Darwin's birth were scheduled for 2009. They celebrated the ideas which "over the last 150 years have revolutionised our understanding of nature and our place within it". In a survey conducted by a group of academic booksellers, publishers and librarians in advance of Academic Book Week in the United Kingdom, "On the Origin of Species" was voted the most influential academic book ever written. It was hailed as "the supreme demonstration of why academic books matter" and "a book which has changed the way we think about everything".
Genetics and the Origin of Species revive the Jesup lectures, a series that had involved some notable lecturers in the past. It was back-dated so that Dobzhansky's lectures became the first in the series. The Columbia University Biological Series was also revived, and when "Genetics and the Origin of Species" was published in October 1937 it became the 11th volume in that series. Three main editions were published, in 1937, 1941 and 1951, each with significant changes. Dobzhansky considered "Genetics of the Evolutionary Process" (1970) a fourth edition, but one so much changed that it needed a new title. "Genetics and the Origin of Species" has