Traces the processes that produce new species, explains the importance of biodiversity, and recommends steps to help preserve diversity and improve the general quality of life

' Like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, this is a book about the fate of the earth and the survival of our planet. Wilson attempts to bridge the seemingly irreconcilable worlds of fundamentalism and science. Passionately concerned about the state of the world, he draws on his own personal experiences and expertise as an entomologist, and prophesies that half the species of plants and animals on Earth could either have gone or at least are fated for early extinction by the end of our present century. This is not a bitter, predictable rant against fundamentalist Christians or deniers of Darwin; rather, Wilson, a leading 'secular humanist,' draws upon his own rich background as a boy in Alabama who 'took the waters,' and seeks not to condemn this new generation of Christians but to address them on their own terms.--From publisher description.The author promotes a new alliance between science and religion to defend nature--the Creation--by joining forces to preserve Earth's threatened biodiversity.

The author, a professor of entomology at Harvard, looks back on his life, education, and career, and discusses his work.

A gift collection of Darwin's four seminal works, introduced and edited by a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard professor, includes Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, in a volume complemented by an index that links Darwinian evolutionary concepts to contemporary biological beliefs. 40,000 first printing.

The groundbreaking survey of the state of our planet that was first published in 1984 has been brought up-to-date to provide a further generation of readers with information to face the environmental challenges of the new millennium.

Analyzes the reciprocative relationship between genes in individuals and the production of culture and shows how predictions about genetic evolution within a cultural pattern can be made

Shares the discovery stories of some of Harvard University's rarest natural history specimens, recounting the origins of such items as Nabokov's butterflies, George Washington's pheasants, a sand dollar collected by Darwin during his Beagle voyage, and the only stuffed bird remaining from the Lewis and Clark expedition. 25,000 first printing.

Challenges perpetuated misconceptions about the nature-nurture controversy by examining hereditary biological controls on human behavior and the possibility of sociobiological limitations on human destiny