Description

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"An audacious and concrete proposal…Half-Earth completes the 86-year-old Wilson’s valedictory trilogy on the human animal and our place on the planet." —Jedediah Purdy, New Republic

In his most urgent book to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and world-renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson states that in order to stave off the mass extinction of species, including our own, we must move swiftly to preserve the biodiversity of our planet. In this "visionary blueprint for saving the planet" (Stephen Greenblatt), Half-Earth argues that the situation facing us is too large to be solved piecemeal and proposes a solution commensurate with the magnitude of the problem: dedicate fully half the surface of the Earth to nature. Identifying actual regions of the planet that can still be reclaimed—such as the California redwood forest, the Amazon River basin, and grasslands of the Serengeti, among others—Wilson puts aside the prevailing pessimism of our times and "speaks with a humane eloquence which calls to us all" (Oliver Sacks).

About the Author

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Edward O. Wilson (1929-2021) was the author of more than thirty books, including Anthill, Letters to a Young Scientist, and The Conquest of Nature. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Wilson was a professor emeritus at Harvard University and lived with his wife in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Praise For…

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An audacious idea that might jump-start a lagging conversation about a burning issue…[I]f Half-Earth takes us any closer to sparking greater effort, it will cement Wilson’s already remarkable legacy.
— Mike Weilbacher - Philadelphia Inquirer

Wilson’s passion for the planet shines through on these pages. He looks at life in its broadest, grandest sweep…Wilson is a thinker in the tradition of Alexander von Humboldt.
— Matthew Price - The National

Few experts have offered such an exuberant and optimistic plan for dealing with [climate change] as biologist Edward O. Wilson…The strength of his argument lies in his ability to elegantly unveil the bigger picture, and to define and examine what in our essential human nature has led us to this point…[W]e need Wilson’s reminder that we are not demigods, but are instead, as he puts it, ‘a biological species tied to this particular biological world.’
— Jessi Phillips - Sierra

As an outline of our terrible ecological plight, it does a first-class job.
— Robin McKie - Guardian