New Releases by Edward O. Wilson

Parmi toutes les espèces de fourmis, il en est une qui, durant des centaines de millions d’années, a connu un extraordinaire succès évolutif : les fourmis coupeuses de feuilles, à l’origine des premières « sociétés agricoles », et ce bien avant l’homme de l’époque néolithique. S’appuyant sur une très riche iconographie et sur les études les plus récentes, ce livre décrit l’éclosion et le développement de leur exceptionnelle civilisation instinctuelle : communication, coopération, division du travail, mutualisme, défense, solidarité, hiérarchie, sacrifice, hygiène... Ces fourmis d’Amérique tropicale, dont les colonies jouent un rôle fondamental dans l’écologie des forêts, des savanes et des prairies, sont le plus remarquable de tous les superorganismes jamais découverts. Des vols nuptiaux au décès de la reine, du travail de ses millions de descendantes à la culture de leur champignon nourricier, du chef-d’oeuvre architectural de leur nid au million de neurones de leur cerveau formidablement structuré, tout chez ces fourmis champignonnistes provoque l’émerveillement.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of The Ants comes this dynamic and visually spectacular portrait of Earth''s ultimate superorganism. The Leafcutter Ants is the most detailed and authoritative description of any ant species ever produced. With a text suitable for both a lay and a scientific audience, the book provides an unforgettable tour of Earth''s most evolved animal societies. Each colony of leafcutters contains as many as five million workers, all the daughters of a single queen that can live over a decade. A gigantic nest can stretch thirty feet across, rise five feet or more above the ground, and consist of hundreds of chambers that reach twenty-five feet below the ground surface. Indeed, the leafcutters have parlayed their instinctive civilization into a virtual domination of forest, grassland, and cropland—from Louisiana to Patagonia. Inspired by a section of the authors'' acclaimed The Superorganism, this brilliantly illustrated work provides the ultimate explanation of what a social order with a half-billion years of animal evolution has achieved.

Astonishing, inspirational, even magical: a naturalist''s novel about an Alabama boy who heroically tries to save a sacred forest.

A Criação é um apelo para que deixemos o embate entre religião e ciência de lado para podermos salvar a vida no planeta, que nunca esteve tão ameaçada. VAlendo-se de suas experiências como um dos biólogos mais destacados no cenário mundial, Edward O. WIlson prevê que, até o final do século, pelo menos a metade das espécies de plantas e animais da Terra poderá ter desaparecido, ou estará a caminho da extinção precoce. Escrito em forma de carta a um pastor evangélico, A Criação demonstra que a ciência e a religião não precisam ser, necessariamente, antagonistas em guerra. AO fornecer explicações a respeito dos motivos ambientais e espirituais para nos alarmarmos com a poluição, o aquecimento global e o rápido declínio da diversidade biológica do planeta, Wilson sugere que, se ciência e religião usarem de seu poder para forjar uma aliança fundamentada no respeito mútuo, relevando as diferenças metafísicas básicas e buscando alcançar objetivos práticos, alguns dos mais graves problemas do século XXI poderão ser resolvidos rapidamente. "E. O. WIlson, talvez o maior biólogo da nossa geração, traz uma vida inteira de trabalho e de reflexão para esta obra. [...] É um de seus livros mais perturbadores, mais comoventes e mais importantes." - Oliver Sacks

The book that launched a movement: “Wilson speaks with a humane eloquence which calls to us all” (Oliver Sacks). Called “one of the greatest men alive” by The Times of London, E. O. Wilson proposes an historic partnership between scientists and religious leaders to preserve Earth’s rapidly vanishing biodiversity.

Describing the author''s growth as a scientist and the evolution of the science he has helped define, ''Naturalist'' details how E.O. Wilson''s youthful fascination with nature blossomed into a lifelong calling.

"The Creation is a timely book about the survival of life on this planet, which E. O. Wilson demonstrates is more endangered than ever before. Drawing on his own personal experiences as a world-leading biologist, he prophesies that at least half the species of plants and animals on Earth could either be gone or fated for early extinction by the end of our present century. Written in the form of an impassioned letter to a Southern Baptist pastor, The Creation demonstrates that science and religion need not be warring antagonists."--BOOK JACKET.

Eloquent, practical and wise, this book by one of the world’s most important scientists—and two time Pulitzer Prize winner—should be read and studied by anyone concerned with the fate of the natural world. It "makes one thing clear ... we know what we do, and we have a choice" (The New York Times Book Review). E.O. Wilson assesses the precarious state of our environment, examining the mass extinctions occurring in our time and the natural treasures we are about to lose forever. Yet, rather than eschewing doomsday prophesies, he spells out a specific plan to save our world while there is still time. His vision is a hopeful one, as economically sound as it is environmentally necessary.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "A dazzling journey across the sciences and humanities in search of deep laws to unite them." —The Wall Street Journal One of our greatest scientists—and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for On Human Nature and The Ants—gives us a work of visionary importance that may be the crowning achievement of his career. In Consilience (a word that originally meant "jumping together"), Edward O. Wilson renews the Enlightenment''s search for a unified theory of knowledge in disciplines that range from physics to biology, the social sciences and the humanities. Using the natural sciences as his model, Wilson forges dramatic links between fields. He explores the chemistry of the mind and the genetic bases of culture. He postulates the biological principles underlying works of art from cave-drawings to Lolita. Presenting the latest findings in prose of wonderful clarity and oratorical eloquence, and synthesizing it into a dazzling whole, Consilience is science in the path-clearing traditions of Newton, Einstein, and Richard Feynman.

This classic by the distinguished Harvard entomologist tells how life on earth evolved and became diverse, and now, how diversity and life are endangered by us, truly. While Wilson contributed a great deal to environmental ethics by calling for the preservation of whole ecosystems rather than individual species, his environmentalism appears too anthropocentric: "We should judge every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity." And: "Signals abound that the loss of life''s diversity endangers not just the body but the spirit." This reprint of the 1992 Belknap Press publication contains a new foreword. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

" Perhaps more than any other scientist of our century, Edward O. Wilson has scrutinized animals in their natural settings, tweezing out the dynamics of their social organization, their relationship with their environments, and their behavior, not only for what it tells us about the animals themselves, but for what it can tell us about human nature and our own behavior. He has brought the fascinating and sometimes surprising results of these studies to general readers through a remarkable collection of books, including The Diversity of Life, The Ants, On Human Nature, and Sociobiology. The grace and precision with which he writes of seemingly complex topics has earned him two Pulitzer prizes, and the admiration of scientists and general readers around the world. In Search of Nature presents for the first time a collection of the seminal short writings of Edward O. Wilson, addressing in brief and eminently readable form the themes that have actively engaged this remarkable intellect throughout his career. ""The central theme of the essays is that wild nature and human nature are closely interwoven. I argue that the only way to make complete sense of either is by examining both closely and together as products of evolution.... Human behavior is seen not just as the product of recorded history, ten thousand years recent, but of deep history, the combined genetic and cultural changes that created humanity over hundreds of thousands of years. We need this longer view, I believe, not only to understand our species, but more firmly to secure its future. The book is composed of three sections. ""Animal Nature, Human Nature"" ranges from serpents to sharks to sociality in ants. It asks how and why the universal aversion to snakes might have evolved in humans and primates, marvels at the diversity of the world''s 350 species of shark and how their adaptive success has affected our conception of the world, and admonishes us to ""be careful of little lives""-to see in the construction of insect social systems ""another grand experiment in evolution for our delectation. ""The Patterns of Nature"" probes at the foundation of sociobiology, asking what is the underlying genetic basis of social behavior, and what that means for the future of the human species. Beginning with altruism and aggression, the two poles of behavior, these essays describe how science, like art, adds new information to the accumulated wisdom, establishing new patterns of explanation and inquiry. In ""The Bird of Paradise: The Hunter and the Poet,"" the analytic and synthetic impulses-exemplified in the sciences and the humanities-are called upon to give full definition to the human prospect. ""Nature''s Abundance"" celebrates biodiversity, explaining its fundamental importance to the continued existence of humanity. From ""The Little Things That Run the World""-invertebrate species that make life possible for everyone and everything else-to the emergent belief of many scientists in the human species'' possible innate affinity for other living things, known as biophilia, Wilson sets forth clear and compelling reasons why humans should concern themselves with species loss. ""Is Humanity Suicidal?"" compares the environmentalist''s view with that of the exemptionalist, who holds that since humankind is transcendent in intelligence and spirit, our species must have been released from the iron laws of ecology that bind all other species. Not without optimism, Wilson concludes that we are smart enough and have time enough to avoid an environmental catastrophe of civilization-threatening dimensions-if we are willing both to redirect our science and technology and to reconsider our self-image as a species. In Search of Nature is a lively and accessible introduction to the writings of one of the most brilliant scientists of the 20th century. Imaginatively illustrated by noted artist Laura Southworth, it is a book all readers will treasure."

El exito obtenido por la Historia del tiempo, de Stephen Hawking, propicio la creacion, en 1991, de esta coleccion de divulgacion cientifica que fue dirigida durante largo tiempo por dos personas de formacion humanistica: de ahi ciertas contaminaciones al inicio de la coleccion. Sin embargo, cuando Jose Manuel Sanchez Ron se hizo cargo de ella, dio un aprobado a la gestion anterior. En esta coleccion, quiza la mas ambiciosa de todas las de divulgacion cientifica que se editan en espanol, se han publicado obras de Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, lan Stewart, Edward O. Wilson, Antonio Damasio, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Ilya Prigogine, John D. Barrow, Rita Levi Montalcini, Richard P. Feynman, Roger Penrose, Steven Weinberg, Rachel Carson, Francisco Garcia Olmedo, Francisco Yndurain o Jose Manuel Sanchez Ron. Apasionante relato a traves del tiempo, que traza los procesos que crean nuevas especies en estallidos de radiacion adaptativa y senala las catastrofes que han interrumpido la evolucion y hanreducido la diversidad mundial durante los ultimos 600 millones de anos.

This landmark work is a thoroughgoing survey of one of the largest and most diverse groups of animals on the planet. Hölldobler and Wilson review in exhaustive detail virtually all topics in the anatomy, physiology, social organization, ecology, and natural history of the ants.

Biophilia is Edward O. Wilson''s most personal book, an evocation of his own response to nature and an eloquent statement of the conservation ethic. Wilson argues that our natural affinity for life—biophilia—is the very essence of our humanity and binds us to all other living species.

La sociobiología puede ser uno de los más interesantes e importantes conceptos nuevos, relativo a la gente y a su conducta, de nuestra época. La sociobiología afirma que toda conducta social tiene una base biológica que es genética. Los sociobiólogos son neodarwinistas que prestan más atención al origen de la conducta de las especies que a su evolución anatómica. Los darwinistas, defensores de la teoría de la selección natural, y los mendelianos, que propugnan la evolución mediante mutaciones genéticas favorables, han sostenido interminables debates durante décadas. En esta obra, el profesor E. O. Wilson presenta un análisis reconciliador de estos descubrimientos en sociobiología, basado en la síntesis de unos elementos científicos que se complementan. Wilson describe específicamente los modelos de conducta en numerosas especies distintas de animales - agresión, cuidado de las crías, cooperación, altruismo y otras características básicas.

Singularities of solutions of differential equations forms the common theme of these papers taken from a seminar held at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1977-1978. While some of the lectures were devoted to the analysis of singularities, others focused on applications in spectral theory. As an introduction to the subject, this volume treats current research in the field in such a way that it can be studied with profit by the non-specialist.

welcomed by a new generation of students and scholars in all branches of learning.