Richard Dawkins's first book, and his most influential and best-known. It was published in 1976, when
W.D. Hamilton's "
selfish gene" theory was only beginning to make headway in the world of
biology. The 1989 revision brought it up to date and it is still one of the best general introductions to
genetics.
It and E.O. Wilson's 1975 Sociobiology seemed to herald a new extension of biology, the "sociobiology" of Wilson's title, with wide applicability to human motivation. In fact, however the "selfish" gene (gene-centred) view is the natural extension to traditional Darwinism, and is now the mainstream view.
One peculiar misunderstanding first made when it came out, and still occasionally aired, even by people who claim to have read the book, is that it teaches that human beings are selfish, or ought to be selfish, or are naturally inclined to be selfish, or something of that kind. As a gene is not a human being, a selfish gene is not a selfish human being either.
The 1989 edition included a chapter on iterated Prisoner's Dilemma tournaments, in which surprisingly altruistic and forgiving strategies thrive over cheats and grudge-bearers. So evolution promotes a large dose of altruism, as part of a mixed strategy.
Also in this book he introduced the concept of a meme, an idea stored in brains, and which can reproduce, and which differentially does better or worse according to its previous experience in the world. The conditions are there for evolution to occur among these abstract things.
Like all Dawkins's books, it is packed full of fascinating examples, and impeccable logic taken to far conclusions. His central idea is always Darwin's insight that natural selection will inevitably occur given simple conditions: what Daniel Dennett has called "universal acid". Taking the fact that it is the gene that actually survives, not the body, W.D. Hamilton produced a theory that is now almost universally accepted; and Dawkins is by far its clearest exponent.