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Blueprint

The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society

Blueprint Open the full-size image

Contributors

By Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD

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Price

$18.99

Price

$23.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $18.99 $23.99 CAD
  2. ebook $14.99 $19.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around March 10, 2020. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

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“A dazzlingly erudite synthesis of history, philosophy, anthropology, genetics, sociology, economics, epidemiology, statistics, and more” (Frank Bruni, The New York Times), Blueprint shows why evolution has placed us on a humane path — and how we are united by our common humanity.

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.

Genre:

On Sale
Mar 10, 2020
Page Count
544 pages
Publisher
Little Brown Spark
ISBN-13
9780316230049

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Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD

About the Author

Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, is a professor at Yale University where he is the Sol Goldman Family Professor of Social and Natural Science, in the Departments of Sociology, Medicine, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Statistics and Data Science, and Biomedical Engineering.  Previously, he was a professor at Harvard and the University of Chicago.  He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2006 and was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2009.  He is the Director of the Human Nature Lab, the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science, the co-author of Connected, and the author of Blueprint.  His pathbreaking research has appeared on the front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and other venues.

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