One of our greatest living scientists--and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for On Human Nature and The Ants--gives us a work of visionary importance that may be the crowning achievement of his career. In Consilience (a word that originally meant "jumping together"), Edward O. Wilson renews the Enlightenment's search for a unified theory of knowledge in disciplines that range from physics to biology, the social sciences and the humanities.

Using the natural sciences as his model, Wilson forges dramatic links between fields. He explores the chemistry of the mind and the genetic bases of culture. He postulates the biological principles underlying works of art from cave-drawings to Lolita. Presenting the latest findings in prose of wonderful clarity and oratorical eloquence, and synthesizing it into a dazzling whole, Consilience is science in the path-clearing traditions of Newton, Einstein, and Richard Feynman.

Journey to the Ants gives an outstanding overview of the enormous variety and fascination of myrmecology, from the primitive bulldog ants of Australia to the complexities of weaver ant societies, slave-making ants and agriculture, army ants, and the social parasites concealed within anthills. There is an appendix with practical instructions for collecting individual ants or whole colonies, dead or alive. Hölldobler and Wilson clearly want other children to follow in their footsteps, growing from simple bug love to insights into evolution and society. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Sociobiology defines such concepts as society, individual, population, communication, and regulation. It attempts to explain, biologically, why groups of animals behave the way they do when finding food or shelter, confronting enemies, or getting along with one another. Wilson seeks to explain how group selection, altruism, hierarchies, and sexual selection work in populations of animals, and to identify evolutionary trends and sociobiological characteristics of all animal groups, up to and including man. The insect sections of the books are particularly interesting, given Wilson's status as the world's most famous entomologist.

It is fair to say that as an ecological strategy eusociality has been overwhelmingly successful. It is useful to think of an insect colony as a diffuse organism, weighing anywhere from less than a gram to as much as a kilogram and possessing from about a hundred to a million or more tiny mouths.

It's when Wilson starts talking about human beings that the furor starts. Feminists have been among the strongest critics of the work, arguing that humans are not slaves to a biological destiny, forever locked in "primitive" behavior patterns without the ability to reason past our biochemical nature. Like The Origin of Species, Sociobiology has forced many biologists and social scientists to reassess their most cherished notions of how life works. --Therese Littleton

This book is a work of major importance for the development of environmental and behavioral biology; it covers the classification, evolution, anatomy, physiology, and behavior of the higher social insects--ants, social wasps and bees, and termites. Mr. Wilson reinterprets the knowledge of these insects through the concepts of modern biology, from biochemistry to evolutionary theory and population ecology.

This collection enables us to share Wilson's various vantage points and to view the complexities of nature through his eyes. Wilson aficionados, along with readers discovering his work for the first time, will find in this collection a world of beauty, complexity, and challenge.

Wilson also summarizes our knowledge of the natural history of each species, much of it previously unpublished. In addition, he provides a general account of hyperdiversity, confirming that it is not a statistical artifact but a genuine biological phenomenon that can best be understood by detailed analyses of groups of organisms such as the Pheidole ants.

An important innovation in this book is the inclusion of a CD-ROM containing high-resolution digital images of the type specimens. The CD-ROM is designed to allow quick retrieval of information such as known range, group membership, measurements, and color. The CD-ROM thus will be useful in creating "instant" field guides, comparison charts, and local checklists.

Wer sich auf dieses Buch einlässt, erfährt eine Menge Interessantes über die Natur allgemein, die Natur des Menschen und vor allem über die Beziehung von Natur und Mensch. Faszinierende Einsichten vermittelt Wilson, indem er sich auf ein breites Spektrum an eigenen Erfahrungen, Studien und anderen Untersuchungen stützt. So lernt man hier, wie komplex das Sozialverhalten zum Beispiel von Ameisen ist, was adaptive Radiation ist und welche biologischen Grundlagen des Sozialverhaltens die Soziobiologie untersucht.

Verblüffende Fakten (wussten Sie beispielsweise, dass stündlich etwa drei Arten ausgerottet werden?) führt Wilson in Mengen an -- aber nie als Selbstzweck, sondern um unser Verhältnis zur Natur mit seinen Konsequenzen und Implikationen zu illustrieren. Dabei bringt er auch brisante Themen zur Sprache: Welche Umweltethik brauchen wir? Welche Konsequenzen hat die massive Reduzierung der Artenvielfalt? Wie stehen Geistes- und Naturwissenschaften zueinander? Welches sind unsere biologischen Grundlagen?

Ein aufregendes Buch, das informiert und provoziert, das spannend geschrieben ist und -- in Geschichten verpackt -- eine Fülle von Daten und Fakten aus der Welt der Biologie präsentiert. --Gabi Neumayer

Jürgen Gadau and Jennifer Fewell have assembled leading researchers from the fields of molecular biology, evolutionary genetics, neurophysiology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary theory to reexamine the question of sociality in insects. Recent advances in social complexity theory and the sequencing of the honeybee genome ensure that this book will be valued by anyone working on sociality in insects. At the same time, the theoretical ideas presented will be of broad-ranging significance to those interested in social evolution and complex systems.

Conserving Earth's Biodiversity is a pioneering educational tool based on the teachings and writings of renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson, and created and developed by science educator Dan Perlman.

The program's insightful pedagogy combined with a unique use of multimedia makes it an ideal complement to any standard textbook.

Edward O. Wilson is University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. Arguably the most important evolutionary biologist of his time, he has made seminal contributions to the study of evolution and ecology, created the field of sociobiology, and was one of the earliest voices to speak out about biodiversity loss. Among his books are Sociobiology (Harvard, 1975), The Diversity of Life (Harvard, 1992), and Consilience (Knopf, 1998). Books published by Island Press are Naturalist (1994) and In Search of Nature (1996).

Dan L. Perlman has taught conservation biology at Harvard University for nine years, in addition to teaching all ages from pre-school to post-graduate education for college professors and professionals. He has designed curricula, co-authored with Glenn Adelson the textbook Biodiversity: Exploring Values and Priorities in Conservation (Blackwell, 1997), and is a nature photographer and former systems analyst.

The authors' argument builds impressively from across the entire range of biological and social sciences, but their presentation is essentially lyrical. They share with the reader their reconstruction—both stunning line drawings and colorful vignettes—of how the primitive mind may have functioned in exercising cultural choice with genetic bias. Step by step, they guide us through the diverse categories of evidence, including recent studies of incest avoidance, color vocabulary, infant gaze patterns, taste discriminations, and phobias, which led them toward the theory of cultural transmission based on the importance of genetic filters in individual mental development.

The authors' argument builds impressively from across the entire range of biological and social sciences, but their presentation is essentially lyrical. They share with the reader their reconstruction—both stunning line drawings and colorful vignettes—of how the primitive mind may have functioned in exercising cultural choice with genetic bias. Step by step, they guide us through the diverse categories of evidence, including recent studies of incest avoidance, color vocabulary, infant gaze patterns, taste discriminations, and phobias, which led them toward the theory of cultural transmission based on the importance of genetic filters in individual mental development.

The authors' argument builds impressively from across the entire range of biological and social sciences, but their presentation is essentially lyrical. They share with the reader their reconstruction—both stunning line drawings and colorful vignettes—of how the primitive mind may have functioned in exercising cultural choice with genetic bias. Step by step, they guide us through the diverse categories of evidence, including recent studies of incest avoidance, color vocabulary, infant gaze patterns, taste discriminations, and phobias, which led them toward the theory of cultural transmission based on the importance of genetic filters in individual mental development.