Synopses & Reviews
View a collection of videos on Professor Wilson entitled "On the Relation of Science and the Humanities"
In his new preface E. O. Wilson reflects on how he came to write this book: how The Insect Societies led him to write Sociobiology, and how the political and religious uproar that engulfed that book persuaded him to write another book that would better explain the relevance of biology to the understanding of human behavior.
Review
Twenty-five years after its first publication, Harvard University Press has re-released Edward O. Wilson's classic work, On Human Nature. A double Pulitzer Prize winner, Wilson is a writer of effortless grace and stylish succinctness and this is one of his finest, most important books...[A] highly influential, elegantly written book. Nicholas Wade - New Republic
Review
Emily Wilson's The Death of Socratesis an exceptionally lucid introduction to this famous trial and death...Not only does Ms. Wilson carefully reconstruct the circumstances of the philosopher's demise but she also asks, rather refreshingly, the implicitly obvious but mostly overlooked question of "why the death of Socrates has mattered so much, over such an enormously long period of time and to so many different people." The history of the interpretation of Socrates' death, it turns out, is in large part the history of philosophy itself...The man who has been condemned to death for corrupting the sons of the city ends by instructing his executioners about how to raise his own. He goes to his death without the comfort of a Christian afterlife or any promise of a posthumous reputation, but only with faith in his own reason. After 2,400 years, it's still a resounding epitaph.
Review
Wilson is a sophisticated and marvelously humane writer. His vision is a liberating one, and a reader of this splendid book comes away with a sense of the kinship that exists among the people, animals, and insects that share the planet. New Yorker
Review
Compellingly interesting and enormously important...The most stimulating, the most provocative, and the most illuminating work of nonfiction I have read in some time. William McPherson
Review
A work of high intellectual daring...Here is an accomplished biologist explaining, in notably clear and unprevaricating language, what he thinks his subject now has to offer to the understanding of man and society...The implications of Wilson's thesis are rather considerable, for if true, no system of political, social, religious or ethical thought can afford to ignore it. Washington Post Book World
Review
A seminal, groundbreaking, informative, thought-provoking, enduringly valuable, and highly recommended read. Robin McKie - The Observer
Synopsis
In his new preface E. O. Wilson reflects on how he came to write this book: how The Insect Societies led him to write Sociobiology, and how the political and religious uproar that engulfed that book persuaded him to write another book that would better explain the relevance of biology to the understanding of human behavior.
Synopsis
1979 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
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 Hölldobler), Wilson has won many scientific awards, including the National Medal of Science and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.