Rating: 
Summary: All Work and No Play....
Review: A book that reads like a thesis is never any fun. Ants at Work takes an interesting premise(Ant colonies are not run with any central organization but on a series of interactions within the society) and then proceeds to suck all the life out of it! Filled with graphs and the mind-numbing detail about how the experiments were laid out, Gordon describes a process that was as painful to read as it was to perform. The science seems valid and for that I commend the author, but where's the wit to lighten the burden of all this research. With few illustrations to break up the monotony, this book will be a bore for all but the most studious of entomologists.
Rating: 
Summary: Clear, sensitive, and readable
Review: A pleasant little book almost exclusively about harvester ants of the American southwest. Gordon makes a special effort to be readable and to avoid jargon. There are a few charts and some drawings. She shows how harvester ants perform four kinds of work, foraging, patrolling, nest maintenance, and midden work (feeding the refuse pile). She gives details from her experiments in the Arizona desert where she studied harvester ant colonies for seventeen summers.The fascinating thing about ants is that they are able to organize and accomplish their work without a central authority telling them what to do. Gordon's main purpose is to understand how they do this. She shows that pheromone messages and contacts among individual ants lead to a kind of group knowledge that is reflected in individual behavior. Each ant makes its own choice about what to do at any given time based on clues it gets from its environment, either its nest mates, the weather, or other changing circumstances, or from contacts with ants from other colonies. She shows that the life cycle of a colony and its overall behavior can be seen as that of an organism composed of individuals analogous (but without central management) to an animal made up of individual cells. The colony has a life span, and during that span behaves differently depending upon its age. Because disrupting the underground nests of the ants would alter their behavior, we don't get a very clear picture of how the nest appears. Gordon implies that nests maintained in labs are not the same thing. She makes it clear that such ants also behave differently than ants in a natural setting. This is a fine book. My only quibble would be to say that I would like to read a book on ants with a wider focus, especially on the Argentine ants that dominate the urban environment here in southern California. Additionally it would be nice to know how the organization of harvester ant society compares and contrasts with that of other species.
Rating:
Summary: Clear, sensitive, and readable
Review: A pleasant little book almost exclusively about harvester ants of the American southwest. Gordon makes a special effort to be readable and to avoid jargon. There are a few charts and some drawings. She shows how harvester ants perform four kinds of work, foraging, patrolling, nest maintenance, and midden work (feeding the refuse pile). She gives details from her experiments in the Arizona desert where she studied harvester ant colonies for seventeen summers. The fascinating thing about ants is that they are able to organize and accomplish their work without a central authority telling them what to do. Gordon's main purpose is to understand how they do this. She shows that pheromone messages and contacts among individual ants lead to a kind of group knowledge that is reflected in individual behavior. Each ant makes its own choice about what to do at any given time based on clues it gets from its environment, either its nest mates, the weather, or other changing circumstances, or from contacts with ants from other colonies. She shows that the life cycle of a colony and its overall behavior can be seen as that of an organism composed of individuals analogous (but without central management) to an animal made up of individual cells. The colony has a life span, and during that span behaves differently depending upon its age. Because disrupting the underground nests of the ants would alter their behavior, we don't get a very clear picture of how the nest appears. Gordon implies that nests maintained in labs are not the same thing. She makes it clear that such ants also behave differently than ants in a natural setting. This is a fine book. My only quibble would be to say that I would like to read a book on ants with a wider focus, especially on the Argentine ants that dominate the urban environment here in southern California. Additionally it would be nice to know how the organization of harvester ant society compares and contrasts with that of other species.
Rating:
Summary: A must read strategical guide for anteaters
Review: Ants seems like a mundane boring topic, but it is really quite fascinating the way their societies are structured and how they interract. The extensive studies detailed in the book makes you wonder how little ant brains can work. The author attributes inter-ant communication to various chemical signals - though recently I've read a Discover article that says such cooperation is explained through quantum biological telepathy, BUT YOU KNEW I'D SAY THAT...
Rating: 
Summary: Go to the ant, thou sluggard . . .
Review: Does anarchy work? After reading this fascinating book, you may be tempted to answer "Yes." Granted, Gordon doesn't even tiptoe near such topics. She is a careful, articulate scientist with a penchant for patient and precise observation and the ability to resist any temptation to leap to interesting conclusions. For years, we've been fed stories about the Ant and the Grasshopper, "It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow." Proverbs 6:6 urges us to "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." The Koran advises us, "Not so much as the weight of an ant in earth or Heaven escapes from the Lord . . ." If Big Brother wants us to work, so Big Brother can relax while we labor, then Big Brother has a hundred ways to tell us about the virtues of being as industrious as ants. So, Gordon spent 17 years in the summer Arizona desert to discover just how hard ants really do work. She learned that no ant would be as dedicated as her and her students; for one thing, ants tend to knock off work when the day gets too hot, and many tend to goof off a lot. However, when they do work, they accomplish a lot without a need for bosses or ideologies. "No ant is able to assess the global needs of the colony, or to count how many workers are engaged in each task and decide how many should be allocated differently. The capacities of individuals are limited. Each worker need make only fairly simple decisions. There is abundant evidence, throughout physics, the social sciences, and biology, that such simple behavior by individuals can lead to predictable patterns in the behavior of groups," Gordon writes. In other words, chaos works in organizing basic survival tasks. To me, it suggests a means by which wandering hunters and gatherers organized the first communities, many of which do not appear to have a recognizable hierarchy. Her observations suggest that people, from the earliest days to today's neighborhood self-help groups and corporate world, are able to achieve specific tasks without needing a hierarchy of bosses and motivational experts -- provided they know what is expected of them. In brief, "You know why you were hired -- go do it." Gordon didn't write this to suggest "Here's how to run your company" or as a new way to organize society. It's a book to make readers ask, "If ants function in this manner, will people do the same if left alone?" Rather than managers frantically scurrying about to prod worker ants to get a job done, the conclusion from this book might be called the Little Bo Peep School of Personnel Managers, "Leave them alone, and they'll come home . . . wagging their tails behind them." Ants "know" what needs to be done; a home, food, security against thieves and more ants to keep the system going. Every ant, presumably, has an equal interest in achieving these goals. Our society is much more complex, because of our dependence on material goods and genetically modified foods. We may need good managers to outline specific tasks. However, Gordon's work suggests that we don't need ideologues to dictate a course of action for a whole society. In 1934, Lewis Mumford summed up the need to boss people around, "The clock, not the steam engine, is the key machine of the modern industrial age." Instead of such outside control, Gordon's studies suggest the key for knowledge workers is, "Leave people alone." Perhaps today Mumford would say, "The ant, not a pushy boss, is a key example for the modern knowledge society." Gordon isn't so foolhardy as to suggest any specific outcomes. A careful scientist, she limits her observations to observations of ants. But the wealth of information she presents will persuade everyone who reads `Ants at Work' to think for themselves. It's more than can be said for many books.
Rating:
Summary: Ants are people, too.
Review: Hail to the Queen Ant- Deborah Gordon ! This book is a must for people, organizations and countries. Delightfully and joyfully, Ms. Gordon takes us on a trek up the hill to wisdom. One such insight is that ants--and I would add people--learn by interaction not messaging. Marketers need to listen up!As for a manager's imortance her analysis will sting you.
Rating: 
Summary: Way over-hyped
Review: I confess that I am not an entomologist--I bought this book hoping to find out interesting things about ants and the structure of ant "society". That notwithstanding, I cannot understand why other reviewers found this book so fascinating. 90% of this book is not worth skimming. There certainly are some interesting tidbits, but most of the book centers are the author's fascination with herself and her long list of lab assistants and friends in the field. Perhaps the experts are better judges of this book; however, I learned more from a special on the discovery channel than I did this book.
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Summary: A whole world opens before your eyes
Review: I LOVE this book. What a rare peek over the shoulder of a true scientist with an inquisitive mind and appreciation for the art and beauty of science, applied to these tiny but incredibly interesting creatures. Within the same nest reside 5 or more ant types based on function. In that nest, some live up to 20 years while others "don't live long enough to EVER eat." I will never look at ants the same. Thank you for an insightful and wonderful story that makes life worth living.
Rating:
Summary: You should read this book if...
Review: I'm a bit surprised by some of the negative comments about this book, because they seem to have missed its point. This isn't a formal presentation of the author's research. It therefore lacks many details, does not review the full range of other relevant literature, and it has not been honed by a committee of reviewers. What it DOES do is to give the reader who doesn't know anything about ants a very readable narrative account of how one might go about finding out something about them. This book is as much about how to apply the scientific method to the messy world of animal behavior as it is about ants in particular. Gordon's account of how to do that seems to have been mistaken by some as self indulgence. If you're looking for a detailed account of ants, you should see Holldobler and Wilson's 700+ page "The Ants." If you want an introduction to what's interesting about ants and how people go about studying them, Gordon's book is a great read.
Rating:
Summary: You should read this book if...
Review: I'm a bit surprised by some of the negative comments about this book, because they seem to have missed its point. This isn't a formal presentation of the author's research. It therefore lacks many details, does not review the full range of other relevant literature, and it has not been honed by a committee of reviewers. What it DOES do is to give the reader who doesn't know anything about ants a very readable narrative account of how one might go about finding out something about them. This book is as much about how to apply the scientific method to the messy world of animal behavior as it is about ants in particular. Gordon's account of how to do that seems to have been mistaken by some as self indulgence. If you're looking for a detailed account of ants, you should see Holldobler and Wilson's 700+ page "The Ants." If you want an introduction to what's interesting about ants and how people go about studying them, Gordon's book is a great read.
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