Evolution: Making Sense of Life

Science writer Carl Zimmer and evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen have teamed up to write a textbook intended for biology majors that will inspire students while delivering a solid foundation in evolutionary biology.

Zimmer brings the same story-telling skills he displayed in The Tangled Bank, his 2009 non-majors textbook that the Quarterly Review of Biology called “spectacularly successful.”

Emlen, an award-winning evolutionary biologist at the University of Montana, has infused Evolution: Making Sense of Life with the technical rigor and conceptual depth that today’s biology majors require.

Students will learn the fundamental concepts of evolutionary theory, such as natural selection, genetic drift, phylogeny, and coevolution.