The Social Conquest of Earth

The Social Conquest of Earth
Cover of the first edition
AuthorE. O. Wilson
LanguageEnglish
PublisherLiveright
Publication date
2012
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages352
ISBN978-0871403636
Followed byThe Meaning of Human Existence (2014) 

The Social Conquest of Earth is a 2012 book by biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Wilson adapted the title of Paul Gauguin's famous mural as a theme -- "What are we?", "Where did we come from?", "Where are we going?"—for discussing his topic of eusocial behavior in several arthropod taxa and a few mammalian species, and its role in making humans as a species unique.[1]

Wilson argues, building on the paper "The evolution of eusociality" (2010) by Wilson, Martin Nowak and Corina Tarnita in Nature, for more importance of group selection and against the idea of kin selection.[2]

  1. ^ Bloom, Paul (11 May 2012). "The Original Colonists". New York Times. Retrieved 24 October 2015.
  2. ^ Nowak, Martin A.; Tarnita, Corina E.; Wilson, Edward O. (August 2010). "The evolution of eusociality". Nature. 466 (7310): 1057–1062. Bibcode:2010Natur.466.1057N. doi:10.1038/nature09205. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 3279739. PMID 20740005.