The Diversity of Life is a practical book (a book that shows you how to do something). The first part of the book (well over 3/4) is devoted to a general overview of evolution - its history, the mechanisms through which it works, and particularly the process of extinction. The last part is a plea, an argument to save our planet's biodiversity. He shows a few of the already-known benefits we have received from it, hoping to prove it is too valuable to be summarily destroyed. Finally, he gives his...

Life on Earth is fantastically, extravagantly diverse, something a nonbiologist rarely thinks about. Something few nonbiologists also realize is how poorly it is known to science. One would think that all the mammals have already been discovered, but no, in the 1980s and the 1990s, a new lemur species was discovered in Madagascar, a new deer species in Vietnam, a new monkey species in Gabon, a new whale species in the Pacific, and so on. One would also think that all the animal phyla (the phylum...

This book written by double Pulitzer prize winning zoologist Edward Wilson is a little dated and at 30 years old the illustrations are a little amateurish ........But Edward Wilson, as close to a modern day Charles Darwin as there is, provides a comprehensive understanding of life on earth ranging from blue whales to bacteria. Highly recommended for science buffs and enjoyable for us curious lay persons. It makes me smile to know that amazing people like Wilson populate our world.

It has been a good while since I read this book, a must read in any naturalist's study, and there are many reviews that give the potential reader an idea of its content. Thus here, I'm only opining about its significance.Reading offers two paths in our journey through life. One is in strictly entertaining, even in escaping the troubling reality of our being, and the other is in broadening our horizons of reality in caring about the future — not only our future, but that of our progeny and our ex...

This is an important book that everyone should read but I couldn't help but feel Wilson missed a great opportunity here. Those of us who are familiar with the importance of bio diversity will find much to appreciate in this book. His analysis is cogent and it would take someone who is willfully ignorant to take issue.Nevertheless, for the amateur naturalist, I think that the failure to include even a short section on what one can do in their own community was a terrible missed opportunity. I und...

This represents an outstanding overview of the worldwide threat to biodiversity, an accessible presentation of relevant principles of ecology, and an outline of promising lines of action to save ourselves from our suicidal path. For a scientist, Wilson is surprisingly eloquent and skillful in conveying a lot of information and issues without coming off like a textbook. By coincidence, the Pope just this week presented an Encyclical which exhorted politicians and individuals everywhere to do ever...

This may be the most important book i've read. It is like a bible of life: documenting how diversity exists; its importance and how we are losing it (and thus losing ourselves); and how we might regain it. Written in 2005, warning about the sixth mass extinction, we (in 2021) sadly do not seem poised to reverse the decimating trends we have embarked on.

This book was not on my To-Read List but should have been. Instead, I picked it up for a buck at our library's used book sale.For an amateur naturalist and docent for 4th graders at a nature preserve this book perfectly addressed the main topics we try to get across to the kids: how important and delicate ecosystems are and how if you remove certain keystone species the whole habitat may collapse like the London Bridge.Given that the book is now more than 20 years old, I am keen to read a more r...

Q: What broods, can be green at the gills and is occasionally found in abysmal depths, with its mouth transfixed in the perennial O of astonishment? A: A biologist.What else could they feel, those that truly delight in their work, when in the midst of their beloved specimens they continuously discover omens of imminent destruction? When they emerge from the fey halls of majestic metamorphosis, only to behold vast fields of felled trees and scorched earth, ominously still in deathly silence? When...

Not really sure how to rate this so I decided not to. I may rate it later, and if I do I'll probably go into some more detail in the review. Anyway, a few preliminary points:i. The book/author politicizes and moralizes, and I hate that on principle.ii. I was _very_ close to chucking the book after the first 10-15 pages because it reads like a very long NY Times article. Here are a few illustrative quotes from the beginning:"Each evening after dinner I carried a chair to a nearby clearing to esca...

Apart from being incredibly knowledgeable about ecology and naturalism, Edward O. Wilson is also quite eloquent and articulate, a trait that is unfortunately lacking for many scientists and scientists who try to write books. He's really just one of the smartest guys to have ever trekked through the Amazon Rainforest and lived to write about it.

I love this book. I love it for what I learned about biodiversity and biology, and also to be able to read about this man who spent his life in healthy work.

All my linguistics friends made fun of me when I took environmental biology at BYU, but it was honestly of the most spiritual classes I took there. I read this for a report in that class, and I absolutely loved it. If you want to learn more about how ecosystems work in the world in a way that will really make you appreciate the blessings of the Lord, this is a great book.

Admittedly I didn't read this from cover to cover, but rather dipped in and out for certain bits of information as I was prepping for Journey to the Ants by the same author. The book is rich in knowledge and illustration, is engaging and captivating, and provides all the information you could ever require on the biodiversity of planet Earth. The chapters are well laid out, allowing you to dip in if you wish or read straight through. I don't know if its my slightly nihilistic attitude coming thro...

EO Wilson is just excellent. Writer. Ant Entomologist. Ecologist. This 400 page paperback is an introduction to biogeography, paleontology (including paleobotany), how humans are impacting various ecosystems from the rainforests, to the oceans, to the temperate regions like the US, to the Arctic. Extremely clearly written. Lets you in on the secrets of what's being destroyed as we humans expand our activities. And tells you the rate of death. Those species with only 500 individuals will not surv...

You can't help but get pulled into the ecosystems the author describes with such detail, and you also can't help but catch at least a little of his contagious love and fascination with all of the lifeforms around us. I loved reading it, and learned a lot. But mostly I just loved reading Wilson's writing and sharing in his infectious enthusiasm for organisms and evolution.

I heard about this book and this author/scientist at roughly the same time (probably scientist first, then book, then author), but it was not my first E. O. Wilson book to read. Sometimes, when I hear too much about a book, it makes me want to read it less.So, when I found myself amongst the impossibly tall stacks in the evolutionary biology section of Powells Books for the first time, E. O. Wilson's name immediately jumped out at me as familiar, as did the title The Diversity of Life, but I was...

As a biologist, I think is perhaps one of the most engaging and readable introductions to evolution and ecology. Anyone can read this book and not even realize they are learning the fundamentals of these fields. Wilson presents biology as a travelogue around the world and through time.

The Diversity of Life is more or less The Short History of Time of evolutionary ecology and biological diversity but with a disturbing twist. The cosmos and its workings are hardly threatened by man while we're destroying earth's ecosystems and its biodiversity at an alarming and depressing rate (and this book was published in 1992). The science is fascinating, and perhaps no one's better at communicating it to non-specialists than Wilson. But it's hard to imagine an ending to the story that's n...