Evolution, during the early nineteenth century, was an idea in the air. Other thinkers had suggested it, but no one had proposed a cogent explanation for how evolution occurs. Then, in September 1838, a young Englishman named Charles Darwin hit upon the idea that "natural selection" among competing individuals would lead to wondrous adaptations and species diversity. Twenty-one years passed between that epiphany and publication of On the Origin of...

Nonpareil science writer David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology can change our understanding of evolution and life’s history, with powerful implications for human health and even our own human nature.

Reintroduces the author's work about the theory of evolution with over three hundred fifty illustrations and photographs, accompanied by excerpts from his diaries, letters, and other writings.

"The real story of AIDS--how it originated with a virus in a chimpanzee, jumped to one human, and then infected more than 60 million people--is very different from what most of us think we know. Recent research has revealed dark surprises and yielded a radically new scenario of how AIDS began and spread. Excerpted and adapted from the book Spillover, with a new introduction by the author, Quammen's ... investigation tracks the virus from chimp populations...

Thirty years ago, two young biologists named Robert MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson triggered a far-reaching scientific revolution. In a book titled The Theory of Island Biogeography, they presented a new view of a little-understood matter: the geographical patterns in which animal and plant species occur. Why do marsupials exist in Australia and South America, but not in Africa? Why do tigers exist in Asia, but not in New Guinea? Influenced by MacArthur...

A collection of twenty science and nature essays originally published in magazines and periodicals in 1999, selected for inclusion by guest editor David Quammen, with contributors' notes, and a list of one hundred additional distinguished articles of 1999.

"This book explores what many consider to be the most important issue in the re-wilding of America today-roads. Not highways, but the 500,000 miles of roads built on federal forest lands to access natural resources and then abandoned when the resources were removed." "A Road Runs Through It features a collection of essays by some of today's finest nonfiction writers: Peter Matthiessen, Barry Lopez, Janisse Ray, David Quammen, David Petersen, Stephanie...