Everything about this book is top notch and all who were involved should be applauded.

This book is an enduring collection of ideas expressed with lucidity and wisdom.

Bravo.


Excellent essays   November 22, 2003
I was first introduced to E.O. Wilson when I went on a butterfly count a few years ago. As we were looking for butterflies and counting what we saw, the count leader (who is an incredibly smart naturalist) made a passing refernce to E.O. Wilson. That day I came home and got onto Amazon to find out more. This was the first book I came across and I'm so glad I did. It is filled with about 12 essays on different topics in nature. They're broken down into three groups:
Animal Nature, Human Nature (In the Company of Ants is one of these)
The Patterns of Nature (The Bird of Paradise: Hunter and Poet is one of these)
Nature's Abundance (The Little things that run the world is one of these)

The writing style is easy to read, fun, interesting - I learned a lot reading the essays but also just found the reading fun. I love how Wilson pulls back the stories to ideas/concepts that are relevant to us so we can put things in perspective. Great book! Any nature lover would enjoy it


Stimulative reading   August 28, 2002
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This book is not as provocative as 'On human nature'. The writing is not as combative, although it has many of the same themes :
- human aggression (he does not agree with Konrad Lorenz - even aggression evolves rapidly - and Erich Fromm - humanity is not suicidal -)
- the fallacy of ethics (human nature is to a large extent the heritage of a Pleistocene hunter-gatherer existance)
- the place of mankind in Gaia (the totality of Life on Earth). He argues clearly that if human beings were to disappear, the world would go on little changed and would heal itself from the damage inflicted by mankind. The only necessary animals,for Gaia and also for the human species, are the invertebrates.
Perhaps the most controversial point of the book are his arguments in defence of racial differences in the human populations, based on genetic components. But as always with E. O. Wilson, his argumentation is based on solid research and clear thinking.


An EXCELLENT read.....   June 21, 2002
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

The author has a very easy to read style. It is very succinct and eloquent. If you love nature, you will love this book.

The chapter "In the company of ants" is probably one of the best chapters [of any book] that I have ever read. I found the hierarchal structure of the leaf-cutter ants very intriguing. What marvellous little creatures! I'll never look at an ant the same way again. Here's a little snippet for you:

"Watch where you step. Be careful of little lives. Feed them crumbs of coffeecake. They also like bits of tuna and whipped cream. Get a magnifying glass. Watch them closely. And you will be as close as any person may ever come to seeing social life as it might evolve on another planet."

I also loved three other chapters entitled, "Humanity seen from a distance", "The little things that run the world" and the final chapter, "Is humanity suicidal?". Other interesting chapters are about snakes, or rather serpents, sharks, altruism & aggression, etc. The essence of the book is really as the title suggests, "in search of nature".

Towards the end, a sincere and legitimate message is delivered by the author. It is a very moving assertion and everyone, yes everyone, should read it. Edwin O. Wilson is proof that Carl Sagan wasn't the only good author.