The Superorganism
Subtitle
The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies
In their first major collaboration since their Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Ants," Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson, two of the most renowned biologists in the world, present a brilliant new look at social evolution. Written in fine detail, but for a broad readership, the book chronicles the remarkable growth of knowledge concerning the social insects during the past two decades and provides a deep look in to a part of the living world hitherto glimpsed by only a very few.
Bio
Bert Hölldobler is Foundation Professor at Arizona State University and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. He lives in Arizona and Germany.
Praise for this book
Social insects such as ants have long fascinated renowned biologist Wilson. With colleague Hölldobler, he presents this integrated look at social insects, from the genetic to the colony levels of analysis. Incorporating the evolutionary record into the text, the authors alert readers to the relentlessness of environmental pressures on everything that an insect is or does. The authors particularly theorize the adaptive advantages of a species whose members exist as part of a social organization.
Gilbert Taylor
