In the 1960s and 1970s, something radically new began to emerge: new ways of understanding natural systems, new ways of thinking that questioned many of our basic assumptions. The biology of the mind, advances in evolutionary biology, physics, information technology, genetics, neurobiology, psychology, mechanical engineering, and materials chemistry: all are vital topics in relation to what it means to be human. For the first time, we had both the tools and the willingness to engage in scientific study of human nature.

No one has distinguished, influenced, and been more important to the revolution of scientific thought than evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who, 40 years ago, with the publication of his book "The Selfish Gene," changed our perception of our place in Nature.

Dawkins is a man of ideas, those important ideas that truly influence and change people's lives - transforming the way other scientists think, prompting them to think in a different, constructive way.
If you haven't read "The Selfish Gene," do it now. And if you have done it before, read it again now. It is the book you will be reading throughout the 21st century.

In English, the book was first published in 1976 and reissued in 1989; its thirtieth anniversary edition was released in 2006, while its fortieth anniversary edition was released in June 2016 by Oxford University Press. The 40th anniversary edition includes a new Epilogue, while the Greek version has undergone new and extensive editing.