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

No one distinguished themselves, influenced, or was more important for the revolution of scientific thought than the 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, of those significant ideas that truly affect and change people's lives —transforming the way other scientists think, pushing them to think in a different, constructive way.

If you haven't read The Selfish Gene, do so now. And if you have at some point, 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 the fortieth anniversary edition came out in June 2016 from Oxford University Press. The 40th anniversary edition includes a new Afterword, while the Greek version has undergone new and extensive editing.

What they said about the book:

• “Books about science usually fall into two categories: those that explain science to the general public, aiming to refine their thinking; and those that attempt to convince fellow scientists to support a new theory. Books that manage to do both are rare. One was On the Origin of Species by Darwin. Another is The Selfish Gene by Dawkins.” — Matt Ridley, Nature (2016)
• “The book must be read, and can be read, by almost anyone. It masterfully describes a new aspect of evolutionary theory.” — William Hamilton, Crafoord Prize in Biology, Science (1977)
• “The book, although written to be read by the general public, constitutes a serious contribution to the field of biology.” — John Maynard Smith, Crafoord Prize in Biology, The London Review of Books (1982)
• “The book is an elaborate rephrasing of the central problems of sociobiology.” — Sir Peter Medawar, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine