The experienced reader in natural history will not require instruction about books on evolution. There are about 75 books listed below. Either browse the page or select an author from the list provided here to jump to that author's location below. In some cases you may be directed to separate pages for Ernst Mayr or Steve Gould or to my Essays page (for Dawkins, Miller, Ruse, Wilson, Zimmer) where many more books are listed.

If you are relatively new to the study of science or to evolution please scroll down below the authors list for my recommendations on the best introductory books about evolution. If you are interested in books about the evolution-creationism debate (including intelligent design) you will find a number of titles in the column at the left. Read both sides of the issue to become well informed. See below for why I suggest not beginning with On The Origin of Species.

You can, of course, just skip Darwin and read Jones' Darwin's Ghost, which I highly recommend. Another excellent, but perhaps more demanding, book to give you an overview of evolution is What Evolution Is by Ernst Mayr. Dr. Mayr provides a glossary for more difficult terms, but he does expect readers to have a basic understanding of biology.

Are you ready to go beyond the basics? Many people want to know more about what science can tell us regarding human evolution, details of the fossil record of some lineage — dinosaurs? — or the human genome. Perhaps you want to really know what all the debate is about between evolution and creationism. I'll give you a few suggestions in each of these categories, starting with the evolution-creationism debate (some of which can be found in the column to the left).

Finding Darwin's God by Professor Kenneth R. Miller. Dr. Miller teaches cell biology at Brown University and is a leading author of high school and college biology textbooks. Dr. Miller is a professing Christian who opposes the rejection of factual science by creationism and the Intelligent Design Movement.

Rocks of Ages by Stephen Jay Gould. Although an agnostic and non-practicing Jew, Dr. Gould loved to sing Handel's Messiah and other religious music with a choral society. His slender book is a beautiful contribution toward resolving conflict between religion and science.

Can a Darwinian be a Christian? by Michael Ruse. Professor Ruse teaches Zoology and Philosophy of Science. He also has credentials in theology. His book answers, in the affirmative, the question posed by its title. A Darwinian can be a Christian and vice versa. After all, millions of layman and scientists testify to this fact.

Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley. Each chapter of the book is related to one of the human chromosomes. Ridley is a science writer in the UK and has several best-selling science books to his credit. He writes clearly and knows how to make a complex subject interesting to the lay reader. The book is not illustrated and gives only the briefest background information about basic genetics. Find more books by Matt Ridley below.

Dear Mr Darwin: Letters on the Evolution of Life & Human Nature is a delightful book by Gabriel Dover, Professor of Genetics at the University of Leicester, UK. Dr. Dover educates his readers about genetics while carrying on a correspondence with Charles Darwin at Westminster Abbey. Darwin even brings Newton into the picture as he learns the news about genetics — unknown in his day. We even learn about Manchester United and soccer, erroneously called football by some.

Genes, Peoples and Languages is a small but very interesting book by Professor Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. It describes how modern human languages evoloved over the last 10,000 years, and tells how genes can be used to track the diversification of a species — us.

The Book of Life, edited by Stephen Jay Gould. This artful book discusses the history of life during the last 600 million years. Included are essays written by the top scientists in their fields.

Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals by Simon Conway Morris. This is the story, from the perspective of a scientist who literally opened up the fossils to discovery, of a group of the earliest fossils from the Cambrian Age of Canada. Learn about the difficult work required to unravel the evidence after the fossils are brought back to the museum.

Dinosaur Heresies was written almost 20 years ago by maverick paleontologist Dr. Robert Bakker. Considered by some to be a heretic (hence the title of the book) and by others a genius, and perhaps a bit of both, Bakker brings dinosaurs to life in this wonderfully written book, featuring several illustrations done by Bakker himself.

Extinct Humans by Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey Schwartz. You won't find a prettier book than this one, but it's somewhat pricey. It is richly illustrated with photos, drawings of fossils, footprints, maps and other graphic aids. The authors discuss the vigorous competing viewpoints that exist within paleoanthropology.

Mapping Human History is a wonderful book that discusses the history of our species from our origin on the African savannahs, and walks us through the human diaspora to the rest of the world. This book has been featured as a book of the month for the month of March 2004. Read my review, if you'd like.

Blueprints: Solving the Mysteries of Evolution by Maitland Edey and Donald Johanson. You might encounter problems finding this book, but it is worth the search. Only one chapter deals specifically with human evolution and DNA. Reading that alone is worth the trouble. But the book is also a fine overview of evolution. It is clearly written and contains significant material on the history of evolutionary thought and research.

The inside story of a scientific heresy that is scandalizing traditional paleontology, told by the unorthodox leader of the dinosaurian heretics and featuring over 200 original black-and-white drawings that show how dinosaurs lived.

Over 65 million years ago in what is now Cheyenne River Sioux territory in South Dakota, a Tyrannosaurus rex matriarch locked in a ferocious battle fell mortally wounded into a riverbed. In 1990, her skeleton was found, virtually complete, in what many call the most spectacular dinosaur fossil discovery to date.

A celebration of their diversity, The Cichlid Fishes is also a marvelous exploration of how these unique animals might help resolve the age-old puzzle of how species arise and evolve. Like E.O. Wilson's ants, and Bernd Heinrich's ravens, George Barlow's cichlids will delight and enlighten naturalists for generations to come.

The Naturalist on the River Amazons

The Naturalist on the River Amazon by Henry Walter Bates, this classic in nature writing may be read online or downloaded.

The title of this 1986 work, Dawkins's second book, refers to the Rev. William Paley's 1802 work, Natural Theology, which argued that just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms proves that a Creator exists. Not so, says Dawkins: "All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way... it is the blind watchmaker."

The metaphor of Mount Improbable represents the combination of perfection and improbability, which is epitomized in the seemingly "designed" perfection of living things. In this book, Dawkins skillfully guides the reader on a breathtaking journey through the mountain's passes and up its many peaks to demonstrate that following the improbable path to perfection takes time.

In this groundbreaking and very accessible book, Daniel C. Dennett, the acclaimed author of Consciousness Explained, demonstrates the power of the theory of natural selection and shows how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of our place in the universe.

Though we share 98 percent of our genes with the chimpanzee, our species evolved into something quite extraordinary. Jared Diamond explores the fascinating question of what in less than 2 percent of our genes has enabled us to found civilizations and religions, develop intricate languages, create art, learn science — and acquire the capacity to destroy all our achievements overnight. The Third Chimpanzee is a tour de force, an iconoclastic, entertaining, sometimes alarming look at the unique and marvelous creature that is the human animal.

Why are humans one of the few species to have sex in private? Why do humans have sex any day of the day of the year -- including when the female is pregnant, beyond her reproductive years or between her fertility cycles? Why are human females the only mammals to go through menopause? Why is the human penis so unnecessarily large? Why do we differ so radically in these and other important aspects of our sexuality from our closest animals and ancestors?

There is no more knowledgeable or compelling authority than Jared Diamond to answer these intriguing questions. With wit and fascinating scientific expertise, he explores the mystifying evolutionary forces that gave shape to our sexual distinctions and shows how they contributed to what it means to be uniquely human.

In The Pattern of Evolution, Eldredge offers readers a fascinating view into this window of our world through time. As he and other researchers continue to uncover patterns in their respective fields, and as new disciplines emerge to straddle traditional scientific boundaries, the window grows wider. And some provocative questions arise: Are there connections between the ways the living and nonliving worlds function and evolve? In the aftermath of a tumultuous collision between the earth's biological and physical forces - a tropical storm of tremendous proportions - did the Cecropia tree Eldredge encountered merely survive the devastation, or did the storm clear its way? He examines the history of ideas on evolution from the beginning of the modern scientific era, about two centuries ago, to the present. Seizing on evidence of similar patterns across disciplines, he shows how important issues and events have brought us to the brink of a more comprehensive understanding of the earth. Learning how things work within and between systems is the key to realizing the relation between the world's living and nonliving parts. It is Eldredge's thesis that exploring the connections across systems will lead to the realization that biological evolution is driven by the same underlying forces that have shaped the geology of our planet.

Niles Eldredge, a leading expert on evolution and the diversity of life, has studied creationism and debated creationists for over two decades. Now, in The Triumph of Evolution, he presents the most up-to-date examination of the creation-evolution confrontation available. In this incisive narrative, he reveals the creationists' basic argument and their strategies for advancing it--including the recent attack on "philosophical naturalism" and emphasis on models of "intelligent design" by creationist Phillip Johnson and his colleagues. He also counters the charges that the study of evolution cannot be scientific or that it leads to the demise of family, religion, and traditional values.

Richard Fortey guides us from the barren globe spinning in space, through the very earliest signs of life in the sulphurous hot springs and volcanic vents of the young planet, the appearance of cells, the slow creation of an atmosphere and the evolution of myriad forms of plants and animals that could then be sustained, including the magnificent era of the dinosaurs, and on to the last moment before the debut of Homo sapiens. Fortey weaves this history out of the most delicate traceries left in rock, stone and earth. He also explains how, on each aspect of nature and life, scientists have reached the understanding we have today, who made the key discoveries, who their opponents were and why certain ideas won.

From the author of Life comes the fascinating story of the beginnings of life on our planet as seen by its very first creatures, trilobites -- the exotic, crustacean-like animals that dominated the seas for 300 million years.

Stephen Jay Gould reexamines Darwin's theory in light of the findings of modern evolutionary biology and shows the ways in which biological theories have been concocted to justify social ills.

Harvard professor and MacArthur Prize fellow Stephen Jay Gould views this book as his magnum opus, the definitive statement of his long-developing views on evolutionary ideas. As the work of the foremost contemporary interpreter of evolution, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory will be scrutinized earnestly by members of the academy and the scientific community. As the work of the prose master who gave us The Mismeasure of Man and Wonderful Life, this brisk and brilliant tome will delight anyone who believes that life on the edge is exciting.

Bones of Contention is a behind-the-scenes look at the search for human origins. Analyzing how the biases and preconceptions of paleoanthropologists shaped their work, Roger Lewin's detective stories about the discovery of Neanderthal Man, the Taung Child, Lucy, and other major fossils provide insight into this most subjective of scientific endeavors. The new afterword looks at ways in which paleoanthropology, while becoming more scientific in many ways, remains contentious.

Complexity theory holds that at the root of all complex systems lie a few simple rules that will yield a grand unification of the life sciences. Lewin personalizes a dramatic story of scientific discovery that includes explorations by such diverse scientists as Stephen Jay Gould, Edward O. Wilson, and James Lovelock.

Following in the fashion of Stephen Jay Gould and Peter Medawar, one of the world's leading scientists examines how "pure science" is in fact shaped and guided by social and political needs and assumptions.

This is a tough, challenging and rewarding book aimed at persuading professional biologists to take account of what, Lewontin says, they all know already at some level of their consciousness. The general reader will find here a constructive critique of the limitations of science by a very successful and accomplished scientist.

At age 97, Ernst Mayr is one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century, and here he delivers yet another valuable addition to the field of evolutionary theory. Mayr, who was also a curator at the American Museum of Natural History for two decades, guides lay readers through evolutionary thought from the book of Genesis and creationist theory through Darwin's theories and "soft" evolution and on to more contemporary, inclusive concepts.

Our current controversies very often have as their starting point some vagueness in Darwin's writings or a question Darwin was unable to answer owing to the insufficient biological knowledge available in his time. But one returns to Darwin's original writings for more than historical reasons. Darwin frequently understood things far more clearly than both his supporters and his opponents, including those of the present day.

Freelance science writer Matt Ridley recounts the hundred years' debate over nature versus nurture, suggesting that it might best be replaced by a new image of nature and nurture working in tandem. He argues that genes are designed to take their cues from nurture, and that nurture is also dependent on genetic makeup.

Citing the Red Queen from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators, and answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture.

In this book, his last, Carl Sagan shows once again his extraordinary ability to interpret the mysteries of life and the majesty of the universe for the general reader. In Billions and Billions Sagan applies what we know about science, mathematics, and space to everyday life as well as to the exploration of many essential questions concerning the environment and our future.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Broca's Brain and Cosmos takes us on a powerful and compelling voyage to the inner space between our ears, offering his vivid insight into the brain of man and beast, the origins of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends--and their amazing links to recent discoveries.

Revised to include exciting new topics and approaches in evolutionary genetics, the second edition of this now classic work has been updated throughout. It incorporates new research on game theory; features an extensively revised discussion of sex and host-parasite interactions; and adds a new chapter on molecular genetics and the reconstruction of evolutionary history.

This ambitious book provides the first unified discussion of the full range of evolutionary transitions. Engagingly written and filled with numerous illustrations, this book can be read with enjoyment by anyone with an undergraduate training in biology. It includes accessible discussions of a wide range of topics, from molecular biology and linguistics to insect societies.

Becoming Human is a full account of the creation of homo sapiens, and a comparative study of humanity with higher apes and our early hominid ancestors. As curator of the Department of Anthropology at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, Tattersall lives this stuff, and the depth and breadth of his knowledge comes across in the sweeping story he tells here. Tattersall does not avoid taking a side in the controversial debates about our origins, but he is not one to sling mud. The result is a well-reasoned, thorough, and -- but for some forward-looking pessimism -- uplifting appreciation of humanity.

One of the world's leading authorities on neanderthals provides a provocative theory of their surprisingly recent demise. Dr. Tattersall's fascinating account offers a wonderfully absorbing story and spectacular visual record of the life, habitat, art, and culture of Homo neanderthalensis.

The Variety of Life achieves in one volume what most people would think impossible. It introduces all the principal groups of creatures that are now believed to have existed in the history of the Earth. It reveals their astonishing range of form and lifestyle, showing in passing that animals and plants are really very similar, compared to many (or most) of the rest. Yet it shows how all earthly creatures are related to all the others, despite the vast differences between them.

As the co-formulator with Charles Darwin of the theory of biological evolution via natural selection naturalists Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) argued that plant and animal species develop throughout organic history. Wallace focused special attention on the diversity of tropical life forms and became acutely aware of the adaptive relationship between each species and its particular environment, an ongoing relationship that is necessary for survival reproduction.

A work of astounding scope and originality that provides some of the first evidence of the modern theory of evolution. Wallace, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, spent nearly a decade cataloging the plant and animal species which inhabited the unique geographical area of the Malay Archipelago, and remains to this day one of the most extensive works of natural history ever written.

By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only twenty-four, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries. With humility unspoiled by false modesty, Watson relates his and Crick's desperate efforts to beat Linus Pauling to the Holy Grail of life sciences, the identification of the basic building block of life. Never has a scientist been so truthful in capturing in words the flavor of his work.

In 1952, Watson and Crick identified the double helix structure of DNA. Here, in 29 essays, Watson discusses the process leading up to that discovery and the implications it has had for science and for society in general. Also included are essays that may seem more removed from the actual topic of genetics, including discussions of his early life in Chicago and general ruminations on how to succeed in science.

Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson has long been one of the most prominent scientific voices to speak out about the crisis of species extinction that has engulfed the earth in the past half century. In this eloquent and readable book, Wilson unstintingly portrays the nightmarish scenario into which we are passing but also offers constructive ideas on how it might still be averted.

In the introduction to this Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition, Edward O. Wilson shows how research in human genetics and neuro-science has strengthened the case for a biological understanding of human nature. Human sociobiology, now often called evolutionary psychology, has in the last quarter of a century emerged as its own field of study, drawing on theory and data from both biology and the social sciences." "For its still fresh and illustrated descriptions of animal societies, and its importance as a crucial step forward in the understanding of human beings, this anniversary edition of Sociobiology: The New Synthesis will be welcomed by a new generation of students and scholars in all branches of learning.

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