Blueprint

Format Paperback | 656 pages
Dimensions 104 x 170 x 38mm | 320g
Publication date 16 Apr 2020

Drawing on advances in social science, evolutionary biology, genetics, neuroscience and network science, Blueprint shows how and 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 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.