Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos - Hardcover

Roger Lewin is a prize-winning author and wrote the acclaimed Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos; recipient of the inaugural Lewis Thomas Award for excellence in the communication of life sciences; and the 1992 Award for contribution to issues in conservation by the Society of Conservation Biology. Between 1990 and 1993, he was a visiting professor in biology at Wayne State University, and an associate of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University from 1993 to 1998. He speaks frequently around the world at conferences on complexity science and business.

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. Whether studying cellular automata or the evolution of life on earth, these scientists have found that order naturally seems to emerge within dynamic systems, often from the very brink of chaos. Lewin's far-ranging treatment of the subject is quite different from that of Michael Waldrop's Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos ( LJ 11/1/92), which remains pretty much centered at the Sante Fe Institute. Of the two, Lewin offers the most vivid and engaging discussion of complexity for general readers.
- Gregg Sapp, Montana State Univ. Libs., Bozeman
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