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As Dawkins warns at the outset, whereas the Selfish Gene was written for the layman, the Extended Phenotype is written for the professional biologist. This is why I think I'm being terribly unfair with just a three-star rating, but at least I'm being honest. It's not that I couldn't keep up with the level of argument and the abundance of technical terms, no - I just didn't care! I have no interest in the nuances of the evolution wars that were going on at Dawkin's time of writing, and I completely devoured the Selfish Gene, so for me about a third of the book consisted of preaching to the choir, on that it was spent refuting criticisms of Dawkins' earlier theory. I found myself skipping these clarificatory passages.

And yet! The actual core argument (which can be found in the last four chapters) is so elegantly delivered, that I would have given it five stars had it been published on its own. It offers a wonderful new perspective on genetics that, taken together with the Selfish Gene, has certainly revolutionised my outlook on evolutionary biology. I'd gush a bit more but I'd probably end up quoting blocks of text verbatim from Daniel Dennett's afterword verbatim, as he shares my perspective of an 'outsider' whose formal discipline is philosophy, and appreciates the book for its sustained consistent arguments and beautiful thought experiments. Classic early Dawkins.