The Book
Below is a listing of chapters. For a more detailed look at the content, check out Amazon's Look Inside feature and the Chapters Overview Video
- Chapter 1: The Journey We Will Take
- Chapter 2: We know what life is - a special case of chemistry
- Chapter 3: The only way to win is not to play - the problem with cooperation between organisms
- Chapter 4: The facts of life – reproduction and kin-selected behavior in humans
- Chapter 5: Death from a distance – the evolutionary logic of kinship-independent social cooperation
- Chapter 6: It takes a village to raise a human child
- Chapter 7: Throwing strikes on the village commons – the planet’s first remote killer and first kinship-independent social cooperator
- Chapter 8: Promiscuity and monogamy – sex and family life in the uniquely human village
- Chapter 9: Voices from the past: The evolution of 'language'
- Chapter 10: Wisdom of Crowds – Implications of uniquely human information sharing
- Chapter 11: The human mastery of Earth begins – The behaviorally modern human revolution and the first information economy
- Chapter 12: Neolithic and “agricultural” revolutions – Humans “settle down”
- Chapter 13: Elite body armor: Hierarchical coercive power and the archaic state
- Chapter 14: Modernity emerges from the barrel of a gun, Part 1 – artillery stabilizes the hierarchical state
- Chapter 15: Modernity emerges from the barrel of a gun, Part 2 – handguns democratize the modern state
- Chapter 16: The pan-human population takes full ownership of planet Earth – aircraft, nuclear explosives and the emergence of the pan-global human village
- Chapter 17: Final considerations -A humane future from our evolutionary past
Contact Us
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Amazon Kindle,
Barnes and Noble, or
Direct from Publisher
Enter Discount Code: UPZCVNQV
for 25% off list price (Only available at Direct from Publisher link)
Events
- - 10-10: Sex, institutions, and politics: Joanne Souza & Paul Bingham at TEDxSBU
- - 09-23: Talk at Hofstra University's IDEAS Institute
- - Lively Discussions Following Radio Interview
- - 04/14: Talk on History and Political Behavior at SBU
- - 03/15: Lecture and Book Signing at SBU Wang Center
- - 03/10: Book Presentation and Signing at SBU Bookstore
Recent News
- - New publication in the Journal of Social, Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology
- - New Review of the Book
- - Listen to the Talk from Society for American Archaeology
- - See NSF Evolutionary Studies Talk
- - See the Public Lecture Online
- - Radio Interview on "New Books In History"
- - Discuss Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Address
- - Student Testimonials Added
- - Chapters and Authors Videos Added
It is not often that readers are offered a new theory of human existence encompassing our origins, our unique properties as biological creatures, the agricultural revolution, and the rise of modern states, but this book promises just that. The authors argue that the first humans of two million years ago evolved the capacity to throw stones accurately and thus kill conspecifics from a distance. This capacity for "law enforcement" allowed unrelated individuals to cooperate in ever larger aggregates, thus forever altering the social environment and paving the way for democratization on a global scale. Such bold claims require strong support. The authors are diligent in building their foundation, even if some of their premises can be challenged. This book is surely provocative. Reading it carefully is well worth the effort.
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