The Origins of Creativity - Softcover

Edward O. Wilson is widely recognized as one of the world’s preeminent biologists and naturalists. The author of more than thirty books, including Half-Earth, The Social Conquest of Earth, The Meaning of Human Existence, and Letters to a Young Scientist, Wilson is a professor emeritus at Harvard University. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, he lives with his wife, Irene Wilson, in Lexington, Massachusetts.

“Brimming with ideas . . . . The Origins of Creativity approache[s] creativity scientifically but sensitively, feeling its roots without pulling them out.”
- Economist

“As always, Wilson tosses off astonishing insights with charming ease (he’s a master of the lyrically short sentence). These profoundly humane meditations on nature, creativity, and our primal yearnings will delight his longtime fans and provide newcomers with the perfect introduction to the career and ideas of one of our most distinguished living scientists―whose high school nickname, I was enchanted to learn, was 'Snake Wilson.'”
- Jim Holt, author of Why Does the World Exist?

“From our senior statesman of science comes this fascinating, eloquent, and important reflection on the vital kinship between the humanities and the sciences, the well of creativity fueling them both, and our need as a species to combine their truths to deal with today’s demanding problems. It’s a message that couldn’t be more timely.”
- Diane Ackerman, author of The Zookeeper’s Wife

“Professor Wilson has managed to stay interesting and provocative decade after decade, and this latest volume is no exception. It will make you think long and hard and fruitfully!”
- Bill McKibben, author Radio Free Vermont

“Within The Origins of Creativity, E.O. Wilson returns to his most fertile―and most controversial―ideas: the role of biology within human behavior. Always forging ahead, he considers our most abstract behaviors: the apprehension of beauty and our yearning to recreate it. The grand result is a wholly new take on how even our most monumental ideas trace their origins to the organic expression of our human biology.”
- Hope Jahren, author of Lab Girl

“With his trademark boundless intellect and elegant writing, Wilson argues that we need both the sciences and the humanities in order to understand the deep origins of what makes us human.”
- Alan Lightman, physicist, novelist, and professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT

“Wilson makes a case for blending an understanding of the sciences into the humanities in his latest work, raising provocative questions in the process.”
- Publisher's Weekly

“Luminous. . . . A concise, thoughtful exploration of how human understanding will be enhanced by ‘a humanistic science and a scientific humanities.'”
- Kirkus Reviews