Awards

• Short-listed for National Book Award 2014
• Shortlisted for National Book Awards: Fiction 2014.

Overview

Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche called ""the rainbow colours"" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Edward O. Wilson bridges science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence. Once criticised for his over-reliance on genetics, Wilson unfurls his most expansive and advanced theories on human behaviour. Whether attempting to explicate ""the Riddle of the Human Species"", warning of ""the Collapse of Biodiversity"" or creating a plausible ""Portrait of E.T."", Wilson believes that humanity holds a special position in the known universe. Alarmed, however, that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma in millennia.

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9781631491146

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Reviews

A valedictory work... What a lively writer Mr. Wilson can be. This two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction stands above the crowd of biology writers the way John le Carre stands above spy writers. He's wise, learned, wicked, vivid, oracular. -- Dwight Garner In his typically elegant style, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Wilson (Letters to a Young Scientist) cannily and candidly probes the nature of human existence. E. O. Wilson is Darwin's great successor, a scientist of such astounding breadth, depth, experience, and brilliance that he offers us nothing less than a new understanding of humanity... You will see the beauty, mystery, and possibilities of human existence through the eyes of one of humanity's greatest and most intrepid explorers. -- Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University [A] tough-minded little primer-cum-manifesto... Compact and readable. -- Dan Cryer There can be few better guides through our species' past journey and potential for the future... A provocative and beautifully written collection of essays. -- Tim Lenton No biologist has been more persistent or eloquent in correcting our misapprehensions about human origins than Edward O. Wilson... We should be grateful that Wilson, so late in his illustrious career, still appeals to reason and imagination in hopes of enlightening us about our nature and inspiring us to change our destructive ways. -- Scott Russell Sanders Wilson asks: Does humanity have a special place in the universe? Where are we going, and why? He answers by telling science's latest creation stories, and presenting a vision of the future both inspiring and plausible, not an easy feat to pull off... Wilson is both a wild-eyed optimist and a hard-nosed realist. What more can we ask of a prophet? -- John Horgan

Wilson asks: Does humanity have a special place in the universe? Where are we going, and why? He answers by telling science s latest creation stories, and presenting a vision of the future both inspiring and plausible, not an easy feat to pull off Wilson is both a wild-eyed optimist and a hard-nosed realist. What more can we ask of a prophet? --John Horgan

Author Information

Edward O. Wilson (1929-2021) was the author of more than thirty books, including Anthill, Letters to a Young Scientist, and The Conquest of Nature. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Wilson was a professor emeritus at Harvard University and lived with his wife in Lexington, Massachusetts.

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