In Search of Nature

Biologist Edward O. Wilson has been observing humans and nature in a career in biology that spans more than four decades. For the last 10 years or so, he has labored to alert us to the dangers we face due to the decline in the "diversity of life, which we are so recklessly diminishing through species extinction." The essays in In Search of Nature range widely. He gives us tales of nature's boundless variety with creatures like the reservoir ant and the cookie cutter shark and with a discussion of the importance of taxonomy. In the final essay, "Is Humanity Suicidal?" he returns to the topic that seems to be most on his mind: mankind's assault on the world of nature.