The Diversity of Life - Softcover

Edward O Wilson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140169776 ISBN 13: 9780140169775

Publisher: Penguin, 1994

Synopsis

Written by Edward O. Wilson, Professor at Harvard University, inventor of sociobiolology and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this book looks at the extraordinary diversity of life on our planet, exploring the reasons for biological diversity, the nature and processes of evolutionary adaption and speciation and threat of human-induced extinction.

About this title

Review:

The central message of Edward O. Wilson's stirring new book...is that Homo sapiens is in imminent danger of precipitating a biological disaster to rival anything in evolutionary history. Mr. Wilson...is the doyen of American biology. Two decades ago he popularized the term 'sociobiology, ' and generated a small industry of speculation about the biological basis of human nature. In this book he stops asking what biology does to humans, and asks instead what we humans are doing to biology.--David Papineau "New York Times Book Review "

Edward O. Wilson...has laid and elegant and ingratiating literary style over a fundament of science to produce a book that will enlighten the uninformed, correct the misinformed and serve as a beacon of lucidity in the wilderness...Wilson takes us by the hand and leads us through the wilderness of diversity--explaining along the way how species evolve, adapt, specialize, colonize, hybridize, recreate new versions of themselves, radiate out to new locations, become new things in often symbiotic combination with other new things, then transmogrify themselves into something else and move on again to fill other niches, other combinations--a mad, wonderful saraband of complexity and cohabitation that Wilson conducts with eloquence, clarity, and wit.--T. H. Watkins "Washington Post Book World "

Wilson's is still the best work we are ever likely to have on the tangled, ever-changing relationships that all species on the planet have with one another--and why the preservation of the same biological diversity that sparks our curiosity and enriches our spirit may also be the key to our survival.--T.H. Watkins "Washington Post "

Edward Wilson reminds the jaded viewer that there really is a crisis, and that--just as in 1917--it is already almost too late to do anything about it. He gives a penetrating historical analysis of what went wrong and even has a New Economic Plan which might, just, pull us back from the brink...[This] book is a passionate defense of life's variety.--Steve Jones "London Review of Books "

[Wilson's] passion for the beauty and mystery of nature, coupled with his adherence to scientific method and his unsurpassed professional standing, give the work the possibility of being the most important environmental book since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.--Charles A. Radin "Boston Globe "

We need prophets to shake the souls and grab the attention of those who have eyes but see not. The Diversity of Life is a deft and thoroughly successful mixture of information and prophecy.--Stephen Jay Gould "Nature "

About the Author:

Edward O. Wilson is Pellegrino University Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University. In addition to two Pulitzer Prizes (one of which he shares with Bert Holldobler), Wilson has won many scientific awards, including the National Medal of Science and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0140169776
• ISBN 13: 9780140169775
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416