At the beginning of this century enormous progress had been made in genetics. The Human Genome Project finished sequencing human DNA. It seemed it was only a matter of time until we had all the answers to the secrets of life on this planet. The...
People commonly view evolution as a process of competition between individuals—known as “survival of the fittest”—with the individual representing the “unit of selection.” Richard Dawkins offers a controversial reinterpretation of that...
One of the world’s most important scientists, Edward O. Wilson is also an abundantly talented writer who has twice won the Pulitzer Prize. In this, his most personal and timely book to date, he assesses the precarious state of our environment,...
Charles Darwin’s masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core on publication in 1859. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke but he would surely have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the...
The human body is truly an amazing thing. Capable of awe-inspiring feats of speed and agility, while being mind-blowing in complexity, our bodies are unmatched by any other species on Earth. In this new edition of the Book of the Human Body, we...
Oliver Sacks has always been fascinated by islands—their remoteness, their mystery, above all the unique forms of life they harbor. For him, islands conjure up equally the romance of Melville and Stevenson, the adventure of Magellan and Cook, and...
A brilliant study of Aristotle as biologist
The philosophical classics of Aristotle loom large over the history of Western thought, but the subject he most loved was biology. He wrote vast volumes about animals. He described them, classified them,...
Brilliant, shattering, mind-jolting, The Mind’s I is a searching, probing nook—a cosmic journey of the mind—that goes deeply into the problem of self and self-consciousness as anything written in our time. From verbalizing chimpanzees to...