num_pages: 544
description: For too long scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression cruelty prejudice and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features including our capacity for love friendship cooperation and learning. Beneath all of our inventions -- our tools farms machines cities nations -- we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.In Blueprint Nicholas A. Christakis introduces the compelling idea that our genes affect not only our bodies and behaviors but also the ways in which we make societies ones that are surprisingly similar worldwide.With many vivid examples -- including diverse historical and contemporary cultures communities formed in the wake of shipwrecks commune dwellers seeking utopia online groups thrown together by design or involving artificially intelligent bots and even the tender and complex social arrangements of elephants and dolphins that so resemble our own -- Christakis shows that despite a human history replete with violence we cannot escape our social blueprint for goodness.In a world of increasing political and economic polarization it's tempting to ignore the positive role of our evolutionary past. But by exploring the ancient roots of goodness in civilization Blueprint shows that our genes have shaped societies for our welfare and that in a feedback loop stretching back many thousands of years societies are still shaping our genes today.
language: English
title: Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
publisher: Little, Brown Spark