Mr. Rhodes...adds much useful context and detail to Mr. Wilson’s narrative [in his autobiography], even if he isn’t always able to match his subject’s boundless energy and charm.

As fascinating as this material is, it’s all been conveyed to much better effect in Wilson’s 1994 autobiography, Naturalist. In fact, Rhodes relies almost entirely on quotations from that book, supplemented by letters Wilson wrote to his sweetheart and eventual wife, Irene Kelley. Oddly enough, Wilson’s lively, vivid prose, at the heart of every chapter, consistently outshines that of the professional writer.

It’s through these quotes that the reader comes the closest to Wilson as a person. Though Rhodes met Wilson and interviewed him, he includes little about Wilson’s later private life. We meet the naturalist, the scientist and later the activist, but not the husband, father and friend.

And admiring biography.

Esteemed biographer and historian Rhodes warmly portrays Wilson as an ambitious and accomplished biologist, a passionate and influential advocate for identifying all life forms and preserving half of Earth as natural habitat, and a prolific, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer.

... brilliant.