Scientist: E. O. Wilson; A Life in Nature

An admiring biography of biologist E. O. Wilson, sometimes called “the father of biodiversity” or “the father of sociobiology,” based on in-depth research, interviews with Wilson and his colleagues, and Wilson’s own writing. Pulitzer Prize winner Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb) writes that he has long admired Wilson (a fellow Pulitzer winner, and author of On Human Nature and The Ants) for “a quality rare among human beings: he has never stopped growing in knowledge or expanding in range.” This biography begins with Wilson’s research collecting ant specimens in the South Pacific; Rhodes periodically interrupts his own narrative of Wilson’s career to expound on scientific matters. The depth of scientific detail in Rhodes’s account might lose some readers, but these explanations are necessary to understanding the significance of Wilson’s work and his place in the history of science and conservation. However, this biography only briefly addresses Wilson’s racism, sexism, and ties to eugenicist movements.