Genesis

It was not at all coincidental, but both this book and the last that I read (Tribe by Sebastian Junger) are in a lot of ways about the same topic: the most fundamental and natural state of how human societies function. I am a huge fan of EO Wilson, and really regret missing him speak when I was at Yale for the first two years of undergrad and he came by. I also bought his latest book, Tales From the Ant World, which I am excited to read soon.

Genesis is classic Wilson — short in page length, but incredibly deep and nuanced in the ground it is able to cover. You feel by the end of it that you have read something closer to a 500 page book; obviously not surprising for someone who is on his 32nd book and has mastered his craft. Here he makes a bold argument to synthesize social darwinism, taking into account the newest 21st century developments but also fitting in a more “standard model” that fights against traditional held beliefs held in religion.

His guide word here is eusociality — the concept of in-groups collaborating and coordinating with one another for group/society wide development. His declaration that humans are eusocial is the main thrust of the book: that from examples like clear divisions of labor in early to modern human civilizations, groups of eusocial humans develop as a unit, which each constituent part playing their part (but crucially different parts). This is in part how human “intelligence” developed, (defined in the modern context in which cooperative intelligence is prized more than first-principle problem solving in isolation, as thinkers from Aristotle to Douglas Hofstadter have shown). Humans are not unique in this classification: here Wilson brings in his famous studies on ant behavior, wild dogs, and many others. It is a fascinating book and a great read.