title: Life's Grandeur: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin
author:  Stephen Jay Gould 
description: In his characteristically iconoclastic and original way, Gould argues that progress and increasing complexity are not inevitable features of the evolution of life on Earth. Further, if we wish to see grandeur in life, we must discard our selfish and anthropocentric view of evolution and learn to see it as Darwin did, as the random but unfathomably rich source of 'endless forms most beautiful and wonderful'.
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  THE SPREAD 
  OF EXCELLENCE FROM 
  PLATO TO DARWIN 
  STEPHEN JAY GouLD 
  The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 
  Cambridge, Massachusetts 
  London, England 
  2011 
  
  Copyright© 1996 by Stephen Jay Gould 
  All rights reserved 
  Printed in the United States of America 
  Published by arrangement with Harmony Books, an imprint of 
  The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. 
  First Harvard University Press edition, 2011. 
  Design by Lynne Amft 
  Chart illustrations by Bob Roman 
  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 
  Gould, Stephen Jay. 
  Full house: the spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin I Stephen Jay Gould. 
  - 1st Harvard University Press ed. 
  p. 
  cm. 
  Originally published: New York: Harmony Books, c1996. 
  Includes bibliographical references and index. 
  ISBN 978-0-674-06161-3 (pbk.: alk. paper) 
  1. Evolution (Biology). 
  2. Natural history. 
  3. Excellence. 
  I. Title. 
  QH366.2.G6593 2011 
  508-dc23 
  20110179