Why is `blood thicker than water'? Are we innately violent or pacific? Why are plants and animals sexual? Why do we grow old and die? Such questions have motivated the life-work of W.D. Hamilton, widely acknowledged as the most important theoretical biologist of the 20th century. His papers continue to exert an enormous influence and they are now being republished for the first time. This first volume contains all of Hamilton's publications prior to 1981, a set especially relevant to social behavior, kinship theory, sociobiology, and the notion of `selfish genes'. Each paper is introduced by an autobiographical essay written especially for this collection. Accessible to non-specialists, this fascinating volume features several of the most read and famous papers of modern biology.

W.D. Hamilton is considered by many the most important theoretical bio logist of the 20th century. He has made major discoveries in evolution ary biology, genetics, and social behavior, and his essays continue to exert tremendous influence throughout the discipline. This second vol ume of his collected papers focuses on his groundbreaking work on sex and sexual selection. It contains the 18 papers he published between 1 980 and 1991, many of them examining the role of parasites and disease in promoting genetic diversity. For each paper, Hamilton has written an accessible introduction describing why the work was done, how the p aper came to be written, and its eventual fate. An invaluable collecti on for biologists, this book also provides general readers with deep i nsights into the sometimes surprising mechanics of evolutionary proces ses.