Naturalist - a memoir by Edward O Wilson

This beautifully written, fascinating scientific memior from Edward O Wilson outlines his development as a scientist, from early influences (including youthful nature studies, the church and the Boy Scouts) to his greatest works as a scientist.

Wilson is an eloquent champion of biodiversity and conservation and is the world's greatest expert on ants and a pioneer in the fields of biogeography and sociobiology. Not surprisingly therefore these memoirs are wide ranging in their scope, covering the biology of ants, conflicts between field biologists (of which Wilson is one) and molecular biologists, the importance of islands in biogeography and the evolution of the study of sociobiology in the animal kingdom from ants to primates (and the controversies that arose when those thoughts about aniaml sociobiology came up against human biology).

This is a totally fascinating (and very readable) book for anyone interested in our relationship with the natural world and in how academic science works.

Naturalist by Edward O Wilson published by Penguin.