Life's Grandeur has echoed through my thinking since I originally read it. As an Australian and a cricket fan, I found the baseball chapters wearisome, to the point of giving up the book at one stage.I'm better off for having finished it though.
Gould nails one point in particular: that evolution is radiative not directional, hence, we can not make any distinction of inferior and superior species. I believe many people make the mistake of taking humanity as the 'pinnacle' of evolution. While human social structure is very interesting, and, perhaps, sets us apart from all other extant animals, it wasn't an inevitable outcome of evolution