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The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies
by: Bert Hölldobler, Edward O. Wilson

List Price: $55.00

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Used Price: $32.10
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 595.71782
EAN: 9780393067040
ISBN: 0393067041
Label: W.W. Norton & Co.
Manufacturer: W.W. Norton & Co.
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 576
Publication Date: November 17, 2008
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.
Studio: W.W. Norton & Co.
Sales Rank: 2047

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:

The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of The Ants render the extraordinary lives of the social insects in this visually spectacular volume. The Superorganism promises to be one of the most important scientific works published in this decade. Coming eighteen years after the publication of The Ants, this new volume expands our knowledge of the social insects (among them, ants, bees, wasps, and termites) and is based on remarkable research conducted mostly within the last two decades. These superorganisms—a tightly knit colony of individuals, formed by altruistic cooperation, complex communication, and division of labor—represent one of the basic stages of biological organization, midway between the organism and the entire species. The study of the superorganism, as the authors demonstrate, has led to important advances in our understanding of how the transitions between such levels have occurred in evolution and how life as a whole has progressed from simple to complex forms. Ultimately, this book provides a deep look into a part of the living world hitherto glimpsed by only a very few.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Dense with Information
In the tradition of their monumental 1990 work, The Ants, this new contribution from Holldobler and Wilson is a hefty, substantial and intellectually challenging book. It brings readers up to date on the large amount of research on ants that has happened since. Other eusocial insects are given mention but the focus is ants, to which each of these scientists have devoted large portions of their careers. It is not light reading, but if insects, evolution, communication, and/or biology interest you, then you'll find plenty here to engage you. In addition to some 500 pages of text there are many beautiful color plates and black-and-white illustrations.

You will learn some pretty amazing things about ants. For instance, African stink ants memorize forest canopy patterns overhead and ... Read More

Rating:

- Superorganism
This is a fascinating book, but one that could be improved. However, the positive (FOR, below) much outweighs the negative (AGAINST, below).

FOR: This book is full of interesting material, most of which is well explained. It follows how eusocial insects construct complex insect societies that display apparent group intelligence by using only a small number of chemical signals and stereotyped responses. It seeks to understand how such complex societies came to exist, based on the competing interactions of selection between indivuals within the colony, and selection between colonies or group selection. It reviews a wealth of material on how such societies operate from relatively simple colonies to the vast and elaborate super-colonies of the leaf cutter ants. Although the shortest ... Read More

Rating:

- RAISING DOUBTS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
The Capacity to Govern: A Report to the Club of Rome

Reading this book with the mind of a political scientist and statecraft advisor is an exciting but sobering experience. It sharpens the binary distinction between the two most successful types of organic live on earth: highly preprogrammed simple entities which aggregate into systems with high quality emergent properties, forming super-organism which behave in ways which we would evaluate as "very intelligent" if we would not know the simplicity of underlying algorithms. And humanity, in which individuals have a significant, though not clearly demarked degree of freedom, but with the emergent quality of humanity as a system being mixed, with outstanding achievements and dismal failures.
While evolutionary processes increased ... Read More

Rating:

- A most magnificant book
Among the many wonderful attributes of this ever-fascinating and incredibly seminal book are that it is beautifully produced. I own and love my Kindle, but this book is proof that there will always be room for the printed word, with its finely crafted pages, beautiful illustrations and impeccable layout, this is one of the most visually rewarding books I own.

None of which gets in the way of the fact that it is also one of the most intellectually stimulating and provocative books to come along since The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author

Rating:

- Endlessly fascinating
This volume presents current evidence regarding social behavior among the social insects. Although it presents research findings, they style is easy to follow and it is well illustrated, such that the volume suits well also as a "coffee table book" for the layperson. It is, indeed, very hard to put down.
A minor quibble I have is that the volume deals almost exclusively with the ants, and thus bees and termites are seldom discussed, despite their being social insects also. No doubt, this bias reflects the specializations of the authors. However, I would have liked to have seen more balanced treatment among the various species of social insects.

Books : The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies