Contrary to what the title might suggest, this is not a basic primer of essential evolutionary details. The subtitle is "How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives". I suppose David Sloan Wilson's book might loosely be classified in that much-maligned category 'socio-biology' - if so, then I think the author possesses a subtlety of thought that, for me, puts him streaks ahead of the well-known pundits of the genre, Desmond Morris and Konrad Lorenz. In terms of relevance to our everyday lives, I'd say he was a lot more significant than Richard Dawkins or even Stephen J Gould or Steve Jones (his use of language is far less confusing and ambiguous than Dawkins, for instance, in his way of describing what is actually going on with those matters of phenotype and genotype. He's also far better at spotting 'religious' thinking in all its aspects - i.e. Marxism or secular gurus such as Ayn Rand - than Dawkins).
Well, I've not finished the book yet, but I'm delighted to have come across an evolutionary thinker I hadn't heard of before, and who seems to have quite a few titles to his name. Not the least of his virtues is the easily comprehensible style in which he writes. Anyone else here familiar with Mr. Sloan Wilson?
