Stephen Jay Gould

"Provocative and delightfully discursive essays on natural history . . . Gould is the Stan Musial of essay writing. He can work himself into a corkscrew of ideas and improbable allusions paragraph after paragraph and then, uncoiling, hit it with such power that his fans know they are...

When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits. Yet the idea of of biology as destiny dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The...

Over a century after Darwin published the Origin of Species, Darwinian theory is in a "vibrantly healthy state," writes Stephen Jay Gould, its most engaging and illuminating exponent. Exploring the "peculiar and mysterious particulars of nature," Gould introduces the listener to some of the many...

"Gould is a natural writer; he has something to say and the inclination and skill with which to say it." -P. B. Medawar, New York Review of Books With sales of well over one million copies in North America alone, the commercial success of Gould's books now matches their critical acclaim. The...