Customer Reviews

Nature Revealed: Selected Writings, 1949-2006

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a superb collection of over sixty original scientific papers, book extracts and other articles by Ed Wilson, one of the all-time great scientists. Each article is placed into historical context with a new introduction by Wilson. Organized by major theme area rather than chronologically, the book illustrates how Wilson's grander biological theories have been underpinned by a deep, relentless inquisitiveness. Wilson's fascination with the diversity of nature in general and ants in particular really shines through. The production quality of the book is excellent. Even at the full retail price the book is a bargain; the currently discounted Amazon price is astounding. This book is well worth buying even if you have most of the original papers.

E.O. Wilson is America's foremost writer on biology, biodiversity, and conservation. (He has two Pulitzer Prizes to prove it.)In "Nature Revealed," we get a look at his most significant writings, just as they appeared in the original journals. This selection gives us a look into the mind of one of today's most brilliant and influential scientists, but it also presents a moving clarification of some of the most important conservation issues facing us today. Everyone who cares about the fate of the earth should read this book.

Wilson is brilliant and this book contains a wonderful variety of his work in their original form. But why is it reproduced in teeny tiny print? Better buy a magnifying glass too if you want to read everything. Also some articles were originally printed in color so maps and graphs with color coding are lost in black white and gray. I only gave this book two stars for the presentation, not the content.

If you enjoy scientific theory applied on both the microcytic and macrocytic scale, look no further than E.O. Wilson. His writings are both entertaining and philosophical while being grounded experimentation. He is one of the few hard scientists who dared (and succeeded) in crossing over to social science, which tends to be a far more vague area of study. This book makes a great gift to a biologist or other rational thinker. I do agree larger print and color would be more helpful, esp. for the crowd that needs bifocals or reading glasses. Not me yet, thank goodness!

I agree with above reviewer about the the good quality and quantity of ideas in this book, but because of the size of the letters used it would be much easier and pleasurable to read it in Kindle or a similar device to be able to enlarge the text.