Social Life in the Insect World by Jean-Henri Fabre

Social Life in the Insect World Reviews

• 
  Ben Davis

  An utterly charming monument to patient, determined, and creative observation. Also a winsome picture of science as delight in the natural order rather than the quest to control that order.
• 
  Nelleke

  Science in the beginning of the 19th century. Imagine: no internet, a few books, a lot of insects, but less knowledge about these. So the best way to start gaining knowledge is to start with experiments by yourself, with a little help from your family or neighbours. How do insects life? How are male-insectes attracted by females. And how come that the male-insects disappear? Amazing to read about this. But the most interesting part was reading about how experiments were done in this period. And amazing how rich the world was about that time.
• 
  Remy

  I have never read a book quite like this. As I understand it, this brief text is just a selection of entries from Fabre's "Souvenirs entomologiques." If this small preview is anything like the rest, I should dearly love to peruse them all! Fortunately, they have been gathered together in a number of small English collections like this by his wonderful translators Alexander Teixeira de Mattos and Bernard Miall.
  
  I cannot imagine anyone, with the slightest entomological interest or not, disliking this book. Even the age of the document, usually so crucial in matters of science, is of little concern here. Fabre's commendable propensity towards the observable fact makes everything stated therein remarkably still accurate. Even when he conjectures, which is rarely, he takes care to qualify it as such; usually with a remark on his uncertainty in the matter. He has a method of making each of his subjects, be it cicada or mantis, supremely approachable. Somehow he does this without watering down their alien otherness. Adding to this, he often digresses into alleys of a more sociological bent, often comparing the lives of the insects to our own. His comments on war, women's rights, the practices of contemporary science; these all give so much flavor that it's impossible not to like the man.
  
  Suffice it to say, Jean-Henri Fabre is my new favorite person in all of time and space.
• 
  Beverly

  This book was out of print when I read it and I could only find crumbling paperbacks from street book vendors. I'd read a a few chapters and then have to find another copy to continue. One guy had two copies so I bought them both. It was well worth the search. This quirky descriptive poet wrote with meticulous detail that made me feel as though I were a half a centimeter big and staring down the poison fangs of giant treacherous predator - twice my size.
• 
  LOL_BOOKS

  EVEN INSECTS HAVE A BETTER SOCIAL LIFE THAN MEMERS