A fundamental book ( )

You are much, much better off just reading his papers. Even if you're not so mathematically minded, skim the equations and just read them. I found all the memoir and fluff boring and pointless. Nowak's ideas are brilliant, but he is at his core a scientific writer. ( )

I read this because Martin Nowak is working with E. O. Wilson on modeling the evolution of ants and other eusocial insects, a project that occupies one chapter. He got hooked by the prisoner’s dilemma early in his career, and has been elaborating ever since, to illuminate social organization and behavior. The presentation is chronological with personal anecdotes. Alas, not as gripping as I’d hoped, maybe a consequence of coauthor Roger Highfield, a journalist and editor, whose role presumably was to nudge in the direction of popular science. Which is fine and the level I was seeking, but it seemed both technical specifics and individual voice were watered down.

I wrote approximately the above two months ago, and had intended to add more, but memory has faded, my page flags aren't triggering either insight or enthusiasm, and I need to move on. Sorry, I'm not doing justice to the book; it's pretty good, but my mind is elsewhere.

(read 27 Aug 2012)