GEERAT J. VERMEIJ is Professor of Marine Ecology and Paleoecology at the University of California at Davis. He has published more than a hundred scientific papers and four books, including A Natural History of Shells (Princeton University Press, 1993) and an autobiography entitled Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life (W. H. Freeman, 1997). He served as editor of Evolution, the field's foremost journal, has a world-class collection of shells, and is an intrepid field naturalist and explorer. In 1992, he won a MacArthur Fellowship. In addition to his scholarly contributions, his passion and enthusiasm for understanding the natural world is further demonstrated by his ability to make science assessable to all segments of society – from teaching in a traditional academic setting to sharing his knowledge with others in a highly acclaimed PBS series, ‘The Shape of Life’.

THE EVOLUTIONARY WORLD
How Adaptation Explains Everything from Seashells to Civilization
GEERAT J. VERMEIJ

From why grass evolved to why insects do not inhabit the sea, Geerat Vermeij answers questions that most of us have forgotten even to ask. He does so in a style of such warm humanity and light informality that the reader can find himself grappling with great evolutionary conundrums without discernible effort – Matt Ridley, author of GENOME: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

The Evolutionary World is a bold, brash, and magisterial account of the fundamental mechanisms that built our bodies, our genes, and our society. A culmination of decades of thinking by one of our leading scientists, this is a book that is sure to stir the pot. In Vermeij's deft hands the vast scope of this book becomes a compelling story to read, to debate and to enlighten – Neil Shubin, author of YOUR INNER FISH: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

A wonderfully rich and wise book. Combining an exhilarating zest for life with unusual and acute powers of observation, Geerat Vermeij is also a refreshingly original thinker. His insights into the processes of evolution and their relevance to science and society are striking and thought-provoking. An illuminating book – Nick Lane, author of LIFE ASCENDING: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution

Geerat Vermeij’s wonderful new book will be read with delight by all who love science and should be read for instruction by those who think that an evolutionary world picture in any way detracts from our true understanding of ourselves and the planet on which we all live. It is simply a testament to the powers of the human mind – Michael Ruse, author of DEFINING DARWIN

Geerat Vermeij was born with an unusual childhood form of glaucoma. His first four years were spent mostly in hospitals in the Dutch province of Groningen and later in Utrecht, in the Netherlands, as doctors struggled to save his sight. In constant pain and in danger of brain damage, Geerat had both eyes removed in 1950. He adjusted quickly to blindness. As he has said, ‘My world was not black and hopeless. It sparkled as it did before, but now with sounds, odors, shapes and textures’.

A fourth-grade teacher in Dover, New Jersey, first aroused his scientific curiosity. Mrs Colberg brought shells she had collected to school and Vermeij examined them closely with his hands – and mind. ‘Mrs Colberg’s finds felt as if they had been crafted by a sculptor with an eye for regularity and intricate detail... She had not only given my hands an unforgettable aesthetic treat, but she aroused in me a lasting curiosity about things unknown... On that day, a wonderful teacher set the course of one man’s life’.

Vermeij never lost his scientific interest in shells. Best known for his work documenting the arms race among long-extinct molluscs and their predators, he has advanced the field of palaeobiology by addressing the profound influences organisms have on each other’s evolutionary histories. His research has spanned the coastlines of nearly every continent and he has truly transformed the field of evolutionary biology. According to David Jablonski, a leading palaeontologist at the University of Chicago, Vermeij’s observations have ‘swept the field and will still be cited a hundred years from now’. The late Stephen Jay Gould hailed Vermeij as ‘an acute thinker and an excellent observer’.

Now, in his first general book on biology for a popular audience, Vermeij sets out the evolutionary worldview, showing how this powerful way of knowing – indeed, of seeing – has outgrown its original home in biology and geology and is now being used to illuminate how we live our lives. The implications for humanity, he shows, cover a wide range of concerns including education, religion, warfare, housing, economic regulation, strategies of conservation, global warming, political incumbency and even lawn-mowing. In a series of beautifully crafted, gently probing chapters, he approaches each facet of evolution and its ramifications from his decidedly individual perspective, illustrating his own tortuous path from initial observation to puzzlement to investigation and application. Inevitably, it is a worldview coulored by his background in natural history, palaeontology, and the study of shells – and of course influenced by his own remarkable personal story.

Publisher: Thomas Dunne/St Martin's (US)
Pub date: 23 November 2010
Status: Finished manuscript
Length: 80,000–90,000 words

All rights available excluding:
World English Language (Thomas Dunne), Israel (Books in the Attic), Netherlands (Nieuw Amsterdam)

For WEL rights contact Kerry Nordling at St Martin’s Press (kerry.nordling@stmartins.com)