Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration Reprint Edition

by Bert Hölldobler (Author), Edward O. Wilson (Author)

48 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0674485266

ISBN-10: 9780674485266

Why is ISBN important?

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Share

Condition: Used - Very Good

In Stock. Sold by clicknship, Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

64 Used from $13.98

FREE Shipping on orders over $25.

Select delivery location

Turn on 1-Click ordering

Only 17 left in stock (more on the way).

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

This item ships to France. Want it Wednesday, Oct. 10? Order within and choose AmazonGlobal Priority Shipping at checkout. Learn more

List Price: $31.00
Save: $4.62 (15%)

35 New from $26.38

Select delivery location

Turn on 1-Click ordering

More Buying Choices

35 New from $26.38 64 Used from $13.98 1 Collectible from $29.99

100 used & new from $13.98

See All Buying Options

Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student

Richly illustrated and delightfully written, Journey to the Ants combines autobiography and scientific lore to convey the excitement and pleasure the study of ants can offer. Bert Hölldobler and E. O. Wilson interweave their personal adventures with the social lives of ants, building, from the first minute observations of childhood, a remarkable account of these abundant insects’ evolutionary achievement.

Frequently bought together

+
+

Total price: $75.68

These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. Show details

Buy the selected items together

This item:Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration by Bert Hölldobler Paperback $26.38
Only 17 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping. Details
The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct by Bert Hölldobler Paperback $13.57
Only 16 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies by Bert Hölldobler Hardcover $35.73
In stock.
Ships from and sold by indoobestsellers.
$3.99 shipping

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Bert Hölldobler

29

Paperback
$13.57
Bert Hölldobler

42

Hardcover
$35.73
Guy Spier

378

Hardcover
$23.56
Bert Holldobler

48

Hardcover
$139.21
Deborah Gordon

18

Paperback
$13.99
Eleanor Spicer Rice

19

Paperback
$16.20

Sponsored products related to this item

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Feedback

Ray Dalio

706

Hardcover
$18.00
Feedback

Tobias Carlisle

How Warren Buffett started his hedge fund at 26 and become the richest man in the world.

67

Kindle Edition
$9.99
Feedback

Olga A Bogatyreva

Ants are personalities who take creative decisions, work in teams and have leaders. Learn ant's secretes for social and ecological crisis management.

8

Paperback
$46.94
Feedback

1419

$25.34
Feedback

1

$19.99
Feedback

Daniel Pecaut

Will there ever be another investing book like this? It's unlikely.

177

Paperback
$12.14
Feedback

5570

$34.99

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Look to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise," says the proverb. Bert Hölldobler and E.O. Wilson have joined together to tell how they took this advice and to share the fruits of their wisdom. As Nature said, they "have done for ants what Levi's did for denim." Not just a good-parts version of their magisterial, Pulitzer-winning The Ants, Journey is also a double autobiography--the history of how early enthusiasm developed into an enormously fruitful scientific collaboration. "We, having entered our bug period as children, were blessed by never being required to abandon it," the authors write. Their devotion to their chosen field shines through.

Journey to the Ants gives an outstanding overview of the enormous variety and fascination of myrmecology, from the primitive bulldog ants of Australia to the complexities of weaver ant societies, slave-making ants and agriculture, army ants, and the social parasites concealed within anthills. There is an appendix with practical instructions for collecting individual ants or whole colonies, dead or alive. Hölldobler and Wilson clearly want other children to follow in their footsteps, growing from simple bug love to insights into evolution and society. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Review

Beautifully written and illustrated...These fifteen chapters are a bustling but well-organized ant heap, full of wonders natural and intellectual. (Philip Morrison Scientific American)

Everyone should read Journey to the Ants; it is a book to read right through; I have done so twice so far. It brings back the joy of science and restores the sense of wonder, it is truly food for thought. For me it is a beloved book that will stay at my bedside. (James E. Lovelock Times Higher Education Supplement)

Hölldobler and Wilson have carefully distilled more than 80 years of their combined personal research and thorough knowledge of the literature to produce a book that is both packed with ideas and information and a joy to read. The authors subtitled their book 'A Story of Scientific Exploration' and, like all good stories, it has a logical progression and sensible themes and is hard to put down. (C. Ronald Carroll American Scientist)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product details

Paperback: 228 pages
Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; Reprint edition (1994)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780674485266
ISBN-13: 978-0674485266
ASIN: 0674485262
Product Dimensions: 8 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 48 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #34 in Books > Science & Math > Biological Sciences > Biology > Entomology
- #39 in Books > Textbooks > Science & Mathematics > Biology & Life Sciences > Zoology
- #49 in Books > Science & Math > Biological Sciences > Animals > Insects & Spiders

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Be the first video

Your name here

Important information

Ingredients

Example Ingredients

Directions

Example Directions

Sponsored products related to this item

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Feedback

Ray Dalio

706

Kindle Edition
$14.99
Feedback

Olga A Bogatyreva

Ants are personalities who take creative decisions, work in teams and have leaders. Learn ant's secretes for social and ecological crisis management.

8

Paperback
$46.94
Feedback

5570

$34.99
Feedback

Daniel Pecaut

Will there ever be another investing book like this? It's unlikely.

177

Paperback
$12.14
Feedback

1

$19.99
Feedback

Tobias Carlisle

How Warren Buffett started his hedge fund at 26 and become the richest man in the world.

67

Kindle Edition
$9.99
Feedback

David Alan Carter

Build an investment portfolio for long-term wealth with a simple ETF trading strategy that reduces risk while delivering a 12% average annual return.

92

Kindle Edition
$7.99

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars

3 star (0%)

2 star (0%)

Write a customer review

See all 48 customer reviews

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Merlin Douglas Larsen

Ants rule the world, or at least dominate by their ubiquitous presence: terrific and very readable book!

December 3, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is the easy reading version of the authors' grand opus. It was more than enough for me. I am completely satisfied with this book: the writing style(s), the interesting way of comparing ants to humans to give the reader perspective of what ants are like (e.g. "If ants invented atomic weapons they would destroy the planet in a week", to indicate how much more warlike than humans who "comparatively are a benign species" - note: my "quotes" are paraphrases). Ants and I have a special relationship, since I saw a phenomenal occurrence many years ago (see attached account). I was hoping that these two eminent myrmecologists might have witnessed something similar enough to tell me what was going on. Alack and alas! I remain as ignorant as before. Nevertheless, I was captivated by this reading experience and love referring to it whenever the subject of ants comes up, which, given that I enjoy them so much, is rather oftener than one might expect.

5 people found this helpful6 people found this helpful

Lawrence W. O'Nan

This is the Bible for ants. I am the ...

October 3, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is the Bible for ants. I am the creator of the Andy Ant series of books and this books is giving me even greater insights into ants. Very helpful. You have to be serious about ants to want to read this. It is full of details...but I find this all interesting and helpful.

2 people found this helpful3 people found this helpful

Interesting and Compelling

January 13, 2006

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

When the authors of this book wrote their Pulitzer Prize winning book The Ants a few years before this one, between them they had dedicated almost 75 years to the study of ants. That tome is weighty in every respect, and a little formidable. This book was written a few years later to distill the categorical information of the former into more accessible and digestible form.

The book addresses the following issues : Why study ants? How are ants organized? How do they communicate? How do they cooperate? What influence do they have on their environment. The answer to the first question is: We study ants because they are highly successful organisms - by some measures more successful than humans. And because they offer a compelling model of society. Parallels between ant and human society are many and may be described in ways that transcend qualities of the individual organisms. And we can do experiments on ant societies that are impossible to do with human ones.

In reading this book, Jared Diamond's Guns, Steel, Germs, and then Montesquieu's Constitution I was struck by a common idea. The ants that live in resource rich locations such as the African jungles have evolved large-scale highly centralized, highly specialized societies. They have many specialized castes. Diamond notes the same of human societies. Ants living in the Australian Outback find the location resource-poor and there is little specialization and almost no social heirarchy. Diamond found the same of Australian Aborigines. Montesquieu, in Constitution observes that when material wealth rises above moderate levels and becomes concentrated in one class, republics fail and turn to more centralized forms - as happened in Rome. He observes "Monarchy is more frequently found in fruitful countries and a republican government in those which are not so. This is sometimes a sufficient compensation for the inconveniences they suffer by the sterility of the land." This leads us to ask whether loss of liberty is an inevitable social consequence of material plentitude.

In studying ants we may not learn whether specialization can exist alongside liberty, but we certainly can learn that specialization depends upon resource plentitude. And it is quite surprising that this is such a fixed rule of society until we think about the fundamental requirements of a society's individuals. Then it begins to take the form of a universal law.

This is by no means a political book. It makes for quite entertaining and lively reading. The pages are sprinkled with illuminating diagrams and illustrations. The language is clear and readable. It clearly makes the case that societies have behaviors that occur almost independent of the qualities of their individuals - apart from their tendency to form societies. The study of ants is unique in its ability to give us a clear and objective view of the dynamics of societies. It is almost impossible to study ants and not come away with a deeper understanding of human society. For this reason the book is recommended for all readers regardless of their interest in the individual ant, or biology in general, or ant society per se.

18 people found this helpful19 people found this helpful

July 20, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

After reading this book, you will never view evolution and man's place on this planet in the same light. The ants are incredible.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Great read. Book in fine condition.

July 9, 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Great read for anybody interested in biology. And, the price is right. I got a very nice hardcover used copy. No complaints at all.

One person found this helpful

Journey of the Ants

July 14, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I have to admit I did not expect to find this book as interesting as it turned out to be. I was only interested in identifying some species within my yard and discovered quite a bit about ants. This book won't make you an expert, but it has made me see ants from a whole new perspective, so much so that I have come to like them instead of disliking them. I can also see why it is possible to kill a colony so easily. Never knew that once the queen is gone, there is no colony. I think if ants had atom bombs they would have destroyed the earth by now - killing each other. I had no idea they were so aggressive towards one another. Anyway, great book to read.

2 people found this helpful3 people found this helpful

Robert T. Nishimoto

July 23, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Excellent as a resource and general reading. Again, Holdobler and Wilson are supreme.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Great, relatively short

December 20, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Great, relatively short, book on a fascinating topic. I learned a lot of facts that were hard to believe.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration

Set up a giveaway

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Bert Hölldobler

42

Hardcover
$35.73
Bert Hölldobler

29

Paperback
$13.57
Bert Holldobler

48

Hardcover
$139.21
Edward O. Wilson

3

Hardcover
$17.25
Edward O. Wilson

98

Paperback
$13.44
Deborah Gordon

18

Paperback
$13.99

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: scientific books

English United States

Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Interest-Based Ads
© 1996-2018, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates