An exploration of the remarkable life and groundbreaking ideas of biologist E.O Wilson, founder of the discipline of sociobiology, world authority on insects and Pulitzer-prize winning writer on the subject of human nature. In Wilson, we see an endearing personality who is one of the great scientists and thinkers of our time.
Beginning with his unusual childhood in Alabama, E.O. Wilson - Of Ants and Men chronicles the famed biologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author's lifelong love for the natural world and the groundbreaking research that would establish him as the foremost authority on ants. Wilson's work on ant communication led him to his remarkable studies of advanced social behavior throughout the animal world, and when his studies turned to human behavior, the new and controversial discipline of sociobiology was founded, creating an uproar in the scientific community. Hardly had that controversy died down when he was embroiled in yet another fierce debate about the theory of evolution, which has brought him into conflict with biologists who fiercely oppose his theory of "group selection."
But above and beyond these scientific debates lies Wilson's abiding passion for the natural world and its conservation. E.O. Wilson--Of Ants and Men culminates with his work in the great National Park of Mozambique, Gorongosa, which brings together the great themes of his life and work: nature and humanity's place in it.