Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Price: $39.95

Format:
Hardback 288 pp.
Integrated colour photographs throughout, 171 mm x 246 mm

ISBN-10:
0199584389

ISBN-13:
9780199584383

Publication date:
November 2010

Imprint: OUP UK

Share on Facebook

Add to Favourites Tell a Friend


The Darwinian Tourist

Viewing the world through evolutionary eyes

Christopher Wills

In this magnificently illustrated book, Christopher Wills takes us on a series of adventures. From the underwater life of Indonesia's Lambeh Strait to a little valley in northern Israel, to an earthquake in the coral reef off the island of Yap and the dry valleys of western Mongolia, Wills demonstrates how ecology and evolution have interacted to yield the world we live in.

Each chapter features a different location and brings out a different and important message. With the author's own stunning photographs of the wildlife he discovered on his travels, he draws out the evolutionary stories behind the wildlife and shows how our understanding of the living world can be deepened by a Darwinian perspective. Wills demonstrates how looking at the world with evolutionary eyes leaves us with a renewed sense of wonder about life's astounding present-day diversity, along with an appreciation of our evolutionary history.

Readership : General popular science readers interested in evolution and biology, and scientists in biology and other fields.

Part One: The Living World
1. Shape-Shifters
2. The Inner Workings of Evolution
3. The Shifting Earth
4. Speciation
5. Rainforests, Diseases, and Speciation
Part Two:The Human Story
6. How Domesticated Animals Changed the World
7. The Great Migration
8. The San and the Hobbits

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Christopher Wills is Professor of Biological Sciences and member of the Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of California. He received the Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology from the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1999. His research interests include the maintenance of genetic variability in human populations, the forces that maintain variation in complex ecosystems such as rainforests and coral reefs, the evolution of diseases, and the evolution of our species.

Darwin's Lost World - Martin Brasier

Special Features

  • Features stunning colour illustrations and photographs of the living world and exotic wildlife.
  • Unravels compelling stories of our evolutionary history and the effect on the living world and present-day diversity.
  • Written by an experienced evolutionary biologist with an engaging writing style.
  • Features the real-life experiences of a practising biologist.
  • Takes the reader on an exploration of the evolutionary forces that have shaped our environment and natural world.