Scientist
E. O. Wilson: A Life in Nature
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A masterful, timely, fully authorized biography of the great and hugely influential biologist and naturalist E. O. Wilson, one of the most ground-breaking and controversial scientists of our time—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
“An impressive account of one of the 20th century’s most prominent biologists, for whom the natural world is ‘a sanctuary and a realm of boundless adventure; the fewer the people in it, the better.’” —The New York Times Book Review
Few biologists in the long history of that science have been as productive, as ground-breaking and as controversial as the Alabama-born Edward Osborne Wilson. At 91 years of age he may be the most eminent American scientist in any field.
Fascinated from an early age by the natural world in general and ants in particular, his field work on them and on all social insects has vastly expanded our knowledge of their many species and fascinating ways of being. This work led to his 1975 book Sociobiology, which created an intellectual firestorm from his contention that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is governed by the laws of evolution and genetics. Subsequently Wilson has become a leading voice on the crucial importance to all life of biodiversity and has worked tirelessly to synthesize the fields of science and the humanities in a fruitful way.
Richard Rhodes is himself a towering figure in the field of science writing and he has had complete and unfettered access to Wilson, his associates, and his papers in writing this book. The result is one of the most accomplished and anticipated and urgently needed scientific biographies in years.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pulitzer–winner Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb) does justice to "one of the... greatest biologists of the twentieth century" in this brilliant biography. Using interviews with E.O. Wilson and his colleagues, Rhodes balances Wilson's vast professional achievements with a moving portrayal of the arc of his life. Born in Alabama in 1929, Wilson had a challenging childhood, including his parents' divorce and a fishing accident that left him blind in one eye. But he devoted himself to studying the natural world, a pursuit leading him to be the first to spot "the invasion of the pestilential red imported fire ant," during his exploration of a vacant lot at age 13. He studied biology at the University of Tennessee (where he got both his bachelor's and master's degrees in biology in four years), then went on to Harvard for a PhD. Rhodes depicts Wilson as a tireless field scientist at a time when the general belief was that the future of biological discoveries was in the laboratory, and as a proponent who popularized sociobiology, and as a Pulitzer-winner for his books The Ants and On Human Nature. The author leaves no doubt as to Wilson's broad impact on science and the public's perceptions of nature, without ever veering into hagiography. This is a must-read.
