Famous for his radical new vision of Darwinism, the author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion, paints a colorful, richly textured canvas of his early life from innocent child to charismatic world-famous scientist. This autobiography is a memoir of the childhood and intellectual development of the evolutionary biologist and atheist, and the story of how he came to write what is widely held to be one of the most important books of the twentieth century. -- From book jacket.