Edward Osborne Wilson (born June 10, 1929), usually cited as E. O. Wilson, is an American biologist, naturalist, and writer. Wilson is an influential biologist who on numerous occasions has been given the nicknames “The New Darwin”, “Darwin’s natural heir” or “The Darwin of the 21st century”. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he has been called the world’s leading expert.
Wilson has been called “the father of sociobiology” and “the father of biodiversity” for his environmental advocacy, and his secular-humanist and deist ideas pertaining to religious and ethical matters. Among his greatest contributions to ecological theory is the theory of island biogeography, which he developed in collaboration with the mathematical ecologist Robert MacArthur. This theory served as the foundation of the field of conservation area design, as well as the unified neutral theory of biodiversity of Stephen Hubbell.
Books in order of publication:
The Theory of Island Biogeography, 1967, Princeton University Press (2001 reprint), with Robert H. MacArthur
The Insect Societies, 1971, Harvard University Press,
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis 1975, Harvard University Press, (Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition, 2000)
On Human Nature, 1979, Harvard University Press, winner of the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
Genes, Mind and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process, 1981, Harvard University Press,
Promethean Fire: Reflections on the Origin of Mind, 1983, Harvard University Press,
Biophilia, 1984, Harvard University Press,
Success and Dominance in Ecosystems: The Case of the Social Insects, 1990, Inter-Research,
The Ants, 1990, Harvard University Press, Winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize, with Bert Hölldobler
The Diversity of Life, 1992, Harvard University Press,
The Biophilia Hypothesis, 1993, Shearwater Books, with Stephen R. Kellert
Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration, 1994, Harvard University Press with Bert Hölldobler
Naturalist, 1994, Shearwater Books,
In Search of Nature, 1996, Shearwater Books, with Laura Simonds Southworth
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, 1998, Knopf,
The Future of Life, 2002, Knopf,
Pheidole in the New World: A Dominant, Hyperdiverse Ant Genus, 2003, Harvard University Press,
The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, September 2006, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Nature Revealed: Selected Writings 1949–2006,
The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies, 2009, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. with Bert Hölldobler
Anthill: A Novel, April 2010, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Kingdom of Ants: Jose Celestino Mutis and the Dawn of Natural History in the New World, 2010, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, with José María Gómez Durán
The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct, 2011, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., with Bert Hölldobler
The Social Conquest of Earth, 2012, Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York,
Letters to a Young Scientist, 2014, Liveright,
A Window on Eternity: A Biologist’s Walk Through Gorongosa National Park, 2014, Simon & Schuster,
The Meaning of Human Existence, 2014, Liveright,
Half-Earth, 2016, Liveright,
The Origins of Creativity, 2017, Liveright,
Genesis: The Deep Origin of Societies, 2019, Liveright;
Tales from the Ant World, 2020, Liveright,
Naturalist: A Graphic Adaptation November 10, 2020, Island Press.
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