To see accurate pricing, please choose your delivery country.
 
 
United States
£ GBP
All Shops

British Wildlife

8 issues per year 84 pages per issue Subscription only

British Wildlife is the leading natural history magazine in the UK, providing essential reading for both enthusiast and professional naturalists and wildlife conservationists. Published eight times a year, British Wildlife bridges the gap between popular writing and scientific literature through a combination of long-form articles, regular columns and reports, book reviews and letters.

Subscriptions from £33 per year

Conservation Land Management

4 issues per year 44 pages per issue Subscription only

Conservation Land Management (CLM) is a quarterly magazine that is widely regarded as essential reading for all who are involved in land management for nature conservation, across the British Isles. CLM includes long-form articles, events listings, publication reviews, new product information and updates, reports of conferences and letters.

Subscriptions from £26 per year
Academic & Professional Books  Natural History  Biography, Exploration & Travel

The Price of Altruism George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness

Biography / Memoir
By: Oren Solomon Harman(Author)
451 pages, halftones
Publisher: WW Norton
The Price of Altruism
Click to have a closer look
Select version
  • The Price of Altruism ISBN: 9780099531661 Paperback May 2011 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 6 days
    £13.99
    #241946
  • The Price of Altruism ISBN: 9780393339994 Paperback Aug 2011 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 2-4 weeks
    £20.50
    #194245
  • The Price of Altruism ISBN: 9780393067781 Hardback Jul 2010 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 2-4 weeks
    £27.99
    #194246
Selected version: £13.99
About this book Customer reviews Biography Related titles

About this book

Survival of the fittest or survival of the nicest? Since the dawn of time man has contemplated the mystery of altruism, but it was Darwin who posed the question most starkly. From the selfless ant to the stinging bee to the man laying down his life for a stranger, evolution has yielded a goodness that in theory should never be.

Set against the sweeping tale of 150 years of scientific attempts to explain kindness, The Price of Altruism tells for the first time the moving story of the eccentric American genius George Price (1922-1975), as he strives to answer evolution's greatest riddle. An original and penetrating picture of twentieth century thought, it is also a deeply personal journey. From the heights of the Manhattan Project to the inspired equation that explains altruism to the depths of homelessness and despair, Price's life embodies the paradoxes of Darwin's enigma. His tragic suicide in a squatter's flat, among the vagabonds to whom he gave all his possessions, provides the ultimate contemplation on the possibility of genuine benevolence.

Customer Reviews

Biography

Oren Harman obtained a D.Phil in the History of Science from Oxford University in 2001. He is the Chair of the Graduate Program in Science, Technology and Society at Bar Ilan University, the author of The Man Who Invented the Chromosome, a documentary film maker, and a frequent contributor to The New Republic. He lives in Tel Aviv.

Biography / Memoir
By: Oren Solomon Harman(Author)
451 pages, halftones
Publisher: WW Norton
Media reviews

"E]nthralling [...] Extremely well researched and written with great love of the subject, The Price of Altruism" reveals all sorts of personal details of momentous events in the history of science [...] This is a book for anyone interested in the question, first posed by Darwin himself, of how we ended up with so much kindness in a natural world customarily depicted as 'red in tooth and claw.' Price struggled with it on an intensely personal level. His story is highly relevant at a time when greed as the basis of society has lost much of its appeal."
– Frans de Waal, The New York Times Book Review

"[A] rich and vigorous survey of the controversy over altruism and its evolutionary role, stretching from the 19th century to now."
Sunday Times [UK]

"Ever since Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution in 1859, scientists have wondered whether it can explain the existence of altruism. Price wanted to describe mathematically how a genetic disposition to altruism could evolve. As Mr. Harman so vividly describes, Price ultimately became one of the vagabonds he set out to save."
The Economist

Current promotions
New and Forthcoming BooksNHBS Moth TrapBritish Wildlife MagazineBuyers Guides