2The Selfish Gene caused a wave of excitement among biologists and the general public when it was first published in 1976. Its vivid rendering of a gene's eye view of life, in lucid prose, gathered together the strands of thought about the nature of natural selection into a conceptual framework with far-reaching implications for our understanding of evolution.Time has confirmed its significance. Intellectually rigorous, yet written in non-technical language, The Selfish Gene is widely regarded as a masterpiece of science writing, and its insights remain as relevant today as on the day it was published."This book should be read, can be read, by almost everyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution." --W. D. Hamilton"Learned, witty, and very well written...exhilaratingly good." --Sir Peter Medawar, The Spectator