Insectopolis
A Natural History
WW Norton · Print & ebook · May 13, 2025
This visually immersive work of graphic nonfiction dives into a world where ants, cicadas, bees, and butterflies visit a library exhibition that displays their stories and humanity’s connection to them throughout the ages.
We earn from qualifying purchases.
- Who it’s for
- Graphic nonfiction brings insect science, human history, and vivid visual storytelling into the same frame.
- Themes
- Insect natural history, Human connections with insects, The ongoing insect crisis
- Genres
- Science & Nature Comics, Insect Biology, Historical Graphic Nonfiction
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved.
Marvel Encyclopedia Collector's EditionAlan Cowsill, Melanie Scott39% match
WE LIVEInaki Miranda, Roy Miranda37% match
SpectatorsBrian K Vaughan, Niko Henrichon45% match
Brave New World: a Graphic NovelAldous Huxley, Fred Fordham41% match
Blue Book Volume 1: 1961James Tynion IV, Michael Avon Oeming46% matchShares Historical Graphic Nonfiction
The Comic Book Story of BaseballAlex Irvine41% matchShares Historical Graphic Nonfiction
Fortunate BeastsOtava Heikkilä37% match
SkipMolly Mendoza38% match
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Start with this bookAbout this book
This visually immersive work of graphic nonfiction dives into a world where ants, cicadas, bees, and butterflies visit a library exhibition that displays their stories and humanity’s connection to them throughout the ages. Kuper’s thrilling visual feast layers history and science, color and design, to tell the remarkable tales of dung beetles navigating by the stars, hawk-size prehistoric dragonflies hunting prey, and mosquitoes changing the course of human history.
Continue reading
Kuper also illuminates pioneering naturalists, from well-known figures like E. O. Wilson and Rachel Carson to unheralded luminaries like Charles Henry Turner, the Black American scholar who documented arthropod intelligence, and Maria Sybilla Merian, the seventeenth-century German regarded as the mother of entomology. Galvanized by the sixth extinction and the ongoing insect crisis, Kuper takes readers on an unforgettable journey.
Small Lives, Big Histories
Graphic nonfiction brings insect science, human history, and vivid visual storytelling into the same frame.
Come here for
- Insect lives told through history, science, color, and design
- Naturalists whose work changed how we understand insects
Expect
- A visually immersive tour from prehistoric dragonflies to star-guiding beetles
- A clear-eyed look at the ongoing insect crisis
Where it sits
| Science & Nature Comics | 91% |
|---|---|
| Historical Graphic Nonfiction | 56% |
| Insect Biology | 52% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Historical Graphic Nonfiction
- Science & Nature Comics
- Insects & Spiders
- Authors
- Peter Kuper
- Publisher
- WW Norton
- Published
- May 13, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Insect natural history · Human connections with insects · The ongoing insect crisis
- Reading lane
- Historical Graphic Nonfiction