Description
Book SynopsisThe million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages. As influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene''s eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research. Forty years later, its insights remain as relevant today as on the day it was published. This 40th anniversary edition includes a new epilogue from the author discussing the continuing relevance of these ideas in evolutionary biology today, as well as the original prefaces and foreword, and extracts from early reviews. Oxford Lan
Trade ReviewIn 1976, The Selfish Gene became the first real blockbuster popular science book, a poetic mark in the sand to the public and scientists alike: this idea had to enter our thinking, our research and our culture... The Selfish Gene has attained its own literary and scientific immortality: as long as we study life, it will be read. * Adam Rutherford, The Observer *
Dawkins's prose is lucid and powerful, his argument difficult to contend ... The Selfish Gene has attained its own literary and scientific immortality: as long as we study life, it will be read. * Adam Rutherford, The Observer *
highly readable and entertaining ... exhilirating gene's-eye-view of life * Robert McCrum, Observer *
Books about science tend to fall into two categories: those that explain it to lay people in the hope of cultivating a wide readership, and those that try to persuade fellow scientists to support a new theory, usually with equations. Books that achieve both changing science and reaching the public are rare. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) was one. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is another. From the moment of its publication 40 years ago, it has been a sparkling best-seller and a scientific game-changer * Matt Ridley, Nature *
Richard Dawkins' magnificent introduction to the world of popular science writing ... Punchy, elegant, self-righteous, devotional (at least in a Dawinian way), it showed that genetics was absorbing, challenging and important * Nick Spencer, The Tablet *
Table of ContentsIntroduction to 30th anniversary edition Preface to 1989 2nd edition Foreword to 1976 1st edition Preface to 1976 1st edition 1: Why are people? 2: The replicators 3: Immortal coils 4: The gene machine 5: Aggression: stability and the selfish machine 6: Genesmanship 7: Family planning 8: Battle of the generations 9: Battle of the sexes 10: You scratch my back, I'll ride on yours 11: Memes: the new replicators 12: Nice guys finish first 13: The long reach of the gene Epilogue to 40th anniversary edition Endnotes Reviews from earlier editions Updated bibliography Index and key to bibliography
