Nonzero: The Logic of Human DestinyIn his bestselling The Moral Animal, Robert Wright applied the principles of evolutionary biology to the study of the human mind. Now Wright attempts something even more ambitious: explaining the direction of evolution and human history–and discerning where history will lead us next. In Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Wright asserts that, ever since the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern. Organisms and human societies alike have grown more complex by mastering the challenges of internal cooperation. Wright's narrative ranges from fossilized bacteria to vampire bats, from stone-age villages to the World Trade Organization, uncovering such surprises as the benefits of barbarian hordes and the useful stability of feudalism. Here is history endowed with moral significance–a way of looking at our biological and cultural evolution that suggests, refreshingly, that human morality has improved over time, and that our instinct to discover meaning may itself serve a higher purpose. Insightful, witty, profound, Nonzero offers breathtaking implications for what we believe and how we adapt to technology's ongoing transformation of the world. |
Contents
What Is It Good For? | |
The Inevitability of Agriculture | |
And Here We | |
New World Order | |
Degrees of Freedom | |
The Cosmic Context | |
The Rise of Biological Nonzerosumness | |
Why Life Is So Complex | |
The Last Adaptation | |
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY | |
The Age of Chiefdoms | |
The Second Information Revolution | |
Civilization and So | |
Our Friends the Barbarians | |
Dark Ages | |
The Inscrutable Orient | |
Modern Times | |
You Call This a God? | |
On Nonzerosumness | |
What Is Social Complexity? | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
About the Author | |
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agriculture American ancient animals anthropologists archaeologists barbarians basic behavior biological evolution biologists Carneiro cells century chapter chief chiefdoms chimps China Chinese civilization consciousness cultural evolution cultural evolutionism Darwinian dynamic early economic empire energy Europe Europe’s European evolutionary evolved example exploitation freedom game theory genes genetic global Gould growing growth historian human history hunter-gatherer hunter-gatherer societies industrial revolution information technology interdependence invented isn’t Johnson and Earle kin selection kind labor land less mean memes Mesoamerica Mesolithic Mesopotamia Middle Ages millennia Ming mitochondria modern moral nations natural selection non-zero-sum games non-zero-sum logic Northwest Coast Indians parasitic personal communication plants political Polynesian population printing press problem question reason reciprocal altruism Roman scholars seems sense Shoshone social complexity social organization species status superorganism supranational Teilhard tend theory there’s things trade trend Upper Paleolithic various villages What’s writing zero-sum