The Superorganism

By Bert Hölldobler, Edward O. Wilson, Edward O. Wilson

Book cover of The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies

Book description

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…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Superorganism as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

We, who live in one clearly delineated body, think we know what an organism is. Social insects challenge this, making us wonder whether the organism is the ant or the anthill. This book, about how individuals add together to make a new being at a larger scale, is fascinating for biology but also nudges us, as readers, to ask questions about what lives are being led within us, by all the cells that make us, and also whether we are ourselves part of a being so much larger than ourselves we cannot see it for what it is any more…

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