By Richard Dawkins

From the Preface: “he first chapter does some of the work of a Preface, in explaining what the book does and does not set out to accomplish, so I can be brief here. It si not a textbook, nor an introduction to an established field. It is a personal look at the evolution oflife, and in particular at the logic of natural selection and the level in the hierarchy of life at which natural selection can be said toact. I happen to be an ethologist, but I hope preoccupations with animal behaviour will not be too noticeable.The intended scope of the book is wider. The readers for whom I am mainly writing are my professional colleagues. evolutionary biologists, ethologists and sociobiologists, ecologists, and philosophers and humanists interested in evolutionary science, including, of course, graduate and undergraduate students in all these disciplines. 'Therefore, although this book is in some ways the sequel to my previous book, The Selfish Gene, it assumes that the reader has professional knowledge of evolutionary biology and its technical terms. On the other hand it is possible to enjoy a professional book as a spectator, even if not a participant in the profession.

Oxford. New York. Oxford University Press. 1982. 319p. CONTAINS MARK-UP