The story of this edition is a testament to an almost legendary gure in theoretical ecology and to the in uence his work and charisma has had on the eld. It is also a story that can only be told by a trip back in time, to the genesis of the First Edition and before. Akira kubo and I were students together, but never knew it at the time. He was a graduate student at The ohns Hopkins niversity, where I was an undergraduate in mathematics. e both studied modern physics, taught by Dino Franco asetti, and we decided years later that we must have been in the same class. Akira was then a chemical...

The story of this edition is a testament to an almost legendary gure in theoretical ecology and to the in uence his work and charisma has had on the eld. It is also a story that can only be told by a trip back in time, to the genesis of the First Edition and before. Akira kubo and I were students together, but never knew it at the time. He was a graduate student at The ohns Hopkins niversity, where I was an undergraduate in mathematics. e both studied modern physics, taught by Dino Franco asetti, and we decided years later that we must have been in the same class. Akira was then a chemical...