Product Description

BIOLOGY is an authoritative majors textbook with evolution as a unifying theme. In revising the text, McGraw-Hill has consulted extensively with previous users, noted experts and professors in the field. It is distinguished from other texts by its strong emphasis on natural selection and the evolutionary process that explains biodiversity.

Not only has the book been thoroughly updated to reflect rapid advances, there is more emphasis today on the teaching of concepts and this has led to significant changes in how the material is presented.They are: 1) Focus on concepts; 2) Reinforcing Ideas; 3) Emphasizing relevance to students; 4) Keeping up with new developments; and 5) Careful editing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #915390 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1284 pages

About the Author
Peter H. Raven, Ph.D., is director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Engelmann professor of botany at Washington University at St. Louis. He oversees the garden's internationally recognized research program in tropical botany--one of the world's most active in the study and conservation of imperiled tropical habitats. Raven's botanical research and work in the area of tropical conservation have earned him numerous honors and awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship. He has written 17 textbooks and more than 400 articles, and he is a member of th National Academy of Science and the National Research Council.

George B. Johnson, Ph.D., is a professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis and a professor of genetics at the university's School of Medicine. He is a prolific author of life science texts and curriculum products in a variety of media. New to his list of works are the Explorations of Human Biology CD-ROM and the textbook Human Biology, both offered by Wm. C. Brown Publishers. Johnson is acknowledged as an authority on population genetics and evolution variability, and he has published more than 50 research papers dealing with these and related topics. Visitors to the St. Louis Zoo can appreciate Johnson's work in the Living World, the educational center of which he is the founding director.

Customer Reviews

Complete and very good textbook!
I used this book for my college biology I and II classes. My favorite part of the book was animal structure and function. Although the writing in this book is on a pretty high level, nothing was left out--very complete. Sometimes it was hard to understand the chapters on genetics. Then again genetics is a hard topic. I used additional sources to clarify on what I learned in Raven's book.

I used AP Biology by Beck. This book was a helpful study guide. This was easy to comprehend. Made biology easier to learn.

However, what really did it for me was Patrick Leonardi's:
The Ultimate Study Guide for Biology: Key Review Questions and Answers with Explanations
This study guide comes in 3 volumes, make sure to get all three if you take biology I and II. If you are only taking Biology I, you can probably get away with only getting volume 1 and 2. These study guides had very good questions on every topic that is tested on in college biology. It was organized into specific sections, making it very helpful for exam preparation. It was so complete that it had the kind of questions that were asked on my exams. Don't go blind into an exam. These books are very helpful.

The finest majors biology book I've seen in a long time
In short, this text is the single most authoritative source of information for general biological science I have seen in a long time. The most unique thing about the book is the way the material is presented: In modular units. The text and images are in 2 or 4 page spreads, which leads to better retention of material, and less "hunting" for the images to which the textual material refers. Students will like the straightforward presentation of the facts and ease of use of this text. In particular, I favored the way the authors take a strong evolutionary perspective to explain the science of biology. In addition, the coverage of DNA and RNA, BEFORE covering transcription and translation, makes sense: some books do not do this, leading to confusion for the more "average" student.The images and writing style are fabulous. In particular, I found the CD ROM that comes with the book to be the single finest addition I have ever seen - far outdistancing the CD typically packaged with most books.

One of those books you take with you on a deserted island
.....or if you had to travel back in time. I had this for my textbook in Biology back in 1987 and even then, .... well before the human genome was anywhere near being charted, let alone completed, this was a spectacular acomplishment. This book isn't riveting like say Druyan and Sagan's SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESOTRS is, but it is as good as any biology textbook can possibly be. It has EVERYTHING you could possibly want to know about biology; from modern cell theory to ecology. All you have to do is look this over and you'll see why I highly recommend it. Does any other bio textbook even compare?