The Selfish Gene caused a wave of excitement among biologists and the general public when it was first published in 1976. Its vivid rendering of a gene's eye view of life, in lucid prose, gathered together the strands of thought about the nature of natural selection into a conceptual framework with far-reaching implications for our understanding of evolution. Time has confirmed its significance. Intellectually rigorous, yet written in non-technical language, The Selfish Gene is widely regarded as a masterpiece of science writing, and its insights remain as relevant today as on the day it was published.

• Introduction to 30th anniversary edition
• Preface to second edition
• Foreword to first edition
• Preface to first edition
• Why are people?
• The replicators
• Immortal coils
• The gene machine
• Aggression: stability and the selfish machine
• Genesmanship
• Family planning
• Battle of the generations
• Battle of the sexes
• You scratch my back, I'll ride on yours
• Memes: the new replicators
• Nice guys finish first
• The long reach of the gene
• Endnotes
• Updated bibliography
• Index and key to bibliography
• Extracts from reviews