Before the Swarm (Kindle Single)

Before the Swarm (Kindle Single) Overview

Intrepid naturalist Mark Moffett is tracking an ant species on a march toward bug-world domination. What a controversial theory of insect society may tell us about our own.

Mark Moffett doesn't just study ants, he travels among them. Moffet holds a Harvard Ph.D. in entomology and is an accomplished scientist, an award-winning author and journalist, and one of the best nature photographers of his generation. Years ago, this free-spirited naturalist left academia behind to plunge into the deepest jungles and observe insect societies up close. Now author Nicholas Griffin takes us inside Moffett's own world, to explore his death-cheating quest for discovery and his end-run around the scientific establishment. We'll follow Moffett into the rainforest as he chases a groundbreaking theory of ant superorganisms and supercolonies, one that may help us understand our own increasingly urbanized society. Along the way we'll meet a fascinating cast of battling army ants, farming leafcutter ants, and the insatiable Argentines: an ant species built to take over the world.

Nicholas Griffin is the author of four novels and one work of nonfiction. He lives in New York City. His next book comes out in 2013.

Before the Swarm (Kindle Single) Specifications

A 30-year veteran photographer for National Geographic, Mark Moffett is also a high-school dropout with a Ph.D, a globetrotting insect enthusiast, a three-time guest on the Colbert Report, and an ineffable eccentric. All of which is to say that, in the right hands, he's also a perfect subject for a written profile. Author Nicholas Griffin is the man with those hands. Despite making his name in historical fiction, Griffin's portrayal of Moffett is masterful, a one-sitting page turner that hits from the opening sentence: "When I shook Mark Moffett's hand, I realized it was swollen and marked by a distinct red mound the size of a grape." (It gets grosser.) Despite the brilliance of his photography and the ambition fueling his science, Moffett's fierce independence has left him something of a persona non grata among the academic establishment, and that's without his theory on the more-than-analogous connection between ant colonies and human cities. All told, Before the Swarm is a near-perfect serving of short-form reading. --Jason Kirk

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