Preview: Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 80: 1-690. Dr. Alexander L. Wild, Department of Entomology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Az 85721, USA. E-mail: alwild@myrmecos.net Myrmecol. News 11: 133-134 (online 25 June 2008) Issn 1994-4136 (print), Issn 1997-3500 (online) Received 7 May 2008; accepted 8 May 2008 The modern evolutionary synthesis arrived to ant taxonomy with the 1955 publication of E.O. WILSON's doctoral dissertation, a monographic revision of the Holarctic genus Lasius. On the surface, Wilson's Lasius revision is similar to any number of monographs published over the past halfcentury, and casual users of the work – still the major reference for Lasius in North America – may struggle to see its importance. But this similarity is precisely its significance: Wilson's dissertation was the first of the modern revisions, the first genus-level monograph on ants that incorporated the ideas of Ernst Mayr and other architects of the evolutionary synthesis. It…