Preview: Springer, Dordrecht, Xiv + 576 pp; Hardcover, ISBN: 978-90-481-3976-7, Price: € 169.95 Graham J. Thompson, Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London On N6A 5B7, Canada. E-mail: graham.thompson@uwo.ca Myrmecol. News 16: 60 (online 30 September 2011) Issn 1994-4136 (print), Issn 1997-3500 (online) Received 26 August 2011; accepted 27 August 2011 Evolutionary biology lends itself well to synthesis. The underlying unity of life allows separate bits of information to be drawn together like pieces of a puzzle. Famously, the merger of Mendelian genetics with Darwin's concept of natural selection during the first half of the 20th century was such a successful integration of ideas that it is still dubbed The Modern Synthesis  a timeless motto that not only reminds us of our academic forefathers, but is appropriately re-deployed whenever significant progress is made from meshing seemingly disparate ideas into a unified thesis. Such is the case with a…