The Human Swarm - Mark W. Moffett

Written by Mark W. Moffett
Read by Sean Patrick Hopkins
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
Release date: 04-19-19

The epic story and ultimate big history of how human society evolved from intimate chimp communities into the sprawling civilizations of a world-dominating species

If a chimpanzee ventures into the territory of a different group, it will almost certainly be killed. But a New Yorker can fly to Los Angeles–or Borneo–with very little fear. Psychologists have done little to explain this: for years, they have held that our biology puts a hard upper limit–about 150 people–on the size of our social groups. But human societies are in fact vastly larger. How do we manage–by and large–to get along with each other?

In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity–and what it will take to sustain them.

Critic Reviews
“The Human Swarm is surely the most accurate, most comprehensive, most original explanation of our social existence that we’re ever likely to see, one jaw-dropping revelation after another, most of them astonishing, all of them fascinating. It’s true without question, which seems obvious as you’re reading, and it’s very well written — a joy to read.”—Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Harmless People

“In the past quarter century, there has emerged a genre of Big History that includes such epic books as Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature, and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens. Mark Moffett’s The Human Swarm is destined to be included in future lists of such books that not only add to our understanding of who we are, how we got here, and where we’re going, but change our perspective of how we fit in the larger picture of life on Earth. A magisterial work of monumental importance.” (Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of The Moral Arc)

“This is a book of amazing ideas, many of them counterintuitive. Mark Moffett’s astounding stories of animal societies persuaded me that the future of human cities have been foretold by the ants. Read this manifesto if you like to have your mind changed.” (Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired Magazine and author of The Inevitable)

“[Moffett] intrigues by setting human societies in the context of those of the animal kingdom. This fine work should have broad appeal to anyone curious about human societies, which is basically everyone.” (Publishers Weekly)