In Weapons of Mass Instruction (p114), Gatto describes the battle between Darwin and Wallace. Darwin was rich and well connected whilest his hypothesis was useful as justification for the imperialistic tendencies of power at that time. Wallace was poor with limited and his more consensus driven approach to evolution was not as useful to power.
In Weapon's of mass instruction the following two books are recommended as they discuss this issue but I have not read either.
Discovering : Inventing Solving Problems at the Frontiers of Scientific Knowledge