Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.

WILSON, Edward O.

Item Number: 1983

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.

First edition. Octavo, original half cloth. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Signed by Edward O. Wilson on the title page, who has drawn an image of an ant.

In Consilience (a word that originally meant "jumping together"), Edward O. Wilson renews the Enlightenment's search for a unified theory of knowledge in disciplines that range from physics to biology, the social sciences and the humanities. Using the natural sciences as his model, Wilson forges dramatic links between fields. He explores the chemistry of the mind and the genetic bases of culture. He postulates the biological principles underlying works of art from cave-drawings to Lolita. Presenting the latest findings in prose of wonderful clarity and oratorical eloquence, and synthesizing it into a dazzling whole, Consilience is science in the path-clearing traditions of Newton, Einstein, and Richard Feynman. "A dazzling journey across the sciences and humanities in search of deep laws to unite them" (The Wall Street Journal).