Sociobiology

Edward O. Wilson

“It is impossible to leave Wilson’s book without having one’s sense of life permanently and dramatically widened.”—Fred Hapgood, The Atlantic

“Rarely has the world been provided with such a splendid stepping stone for an exciting future of a new science.”—John Tyler Bonner, Scientific American

“Sociobiology explores the possibility that animal social behaviour—group living, kinship, attraction and mating, reciprocity and sharing, cooperation, conflict, and cheating, to name just the most familiar—has a genetic basis and can be shaped by natural selection; genes can be shaped by natural selection; genes can code for social behaviours in the same way that they code for body parts such as hands, hooves, eyes, antlers and ears. But, in an audacious final chapter, Wilson extended the analysis to humans: biology had grabbed our kinship, cooperation, mate preferences and the rest. Some branded Wilson and his ideas fascist, others as racist or guilty of genetic determinism. They are none of these things and, two Pulitzer Prizes later, Wilson has been vindicated… Wilson’s Sociobiology laid the foundations for a lifetime of meditations.”—Mark Pagel, The Times Higher Education Supplement

“A towering theoretical achievement of exceptional elegance… Like most great books, Sociobiology is unpedantic, lucid, and eminently accessible.”—Pierre L. van den Berghe, Contemporary Sociology

“This book enthralls and enchants… If you have this book… you can begin getting your mind ready for the illuminations about human society.”—Lewis Thomas, Harper’s

“Its contents do indeed provide a new synthesis, of wide perspective and great authority… Wilson’s plain uncluttered prose is a treat to read, his logic is rigorous, his arguments are lucid.”—V.C. Wymne-Edwards, Nature

“Sociobiology, a new concept, is one with extraordinary potential value for understanding and explaining human behavior.”—Practical Psychology

“This book will stand as a landmark in the comparative study of social behavior.”—Quarterly Review of Biology

“Sociobiology is an excellent book, full of extraordinary insights, and replete with the beauty and poetry of the animal kingdom.”—The Times Literary Supplement

Related Links

• View Edward O. Wilson’s video lecture series, “On the Relation of Science and the Humanities”

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