Roger Lewin - Complexity, Life at the Edge of Chaos (PDF)

"Put together one of the world's best science writers with one of the universe's most fascinating subjects and you are bound to produce a wonderful book. . . . The subject of complexity is vital and controversial. This book is important and beautifully done."
—Stephen Jay Gould

Complexity has its roots in the work of many scientists from several disciplines and has only very recently, with the establishment of an institute in Santa Fe dedicated to its study, begun to come into focus as an analytical theory. Lewin's book is written as a kind of scientific travelog; he goes from the San Juan Basin of New Mexico to rural southwest England to the rain forests of Costa Rica in order to interview some of the key figures of complexity, whose independent works have contributed to the development of what could become a unified theory of the life sciences