Book excerpt: For sample chapters, a video interview with David Hillis, and more information, visit www.whfreeman.com/hillispreview. Sinauer Associates and W.H. Freeman are proud to introduce Principles of Life. Written in the spirit of the reform movement that is reinvigorating the introductory majors course, Principles of Life cuts through the thicket of excessive detail and factual minutiae to focus on what matters most in the study of biology today. Students explore the most essential biological ideas and information in the context of the field’s defining experiments, and are actively engaged in analyzing research data. The result is a textbook that is hundreds of pages shorter (and significantly less expensive) than the current majors introductory books.