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Apocalypse Culture II
by Adam Parfrey

ISBN 0922915571 (0-922915-57-1)
Softcover, Feral House

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Book summary:
When it was published in 1987, Apocalypse Culture was the first of its kind. No other book examined such disturbing cultural extremes, and no other book looked at the dark sides of society within the framework of the apocalypse. In the intervening 12 years, it has become clear that Apocalypse Culture inspired a new genre of cultural commentary that has been embraced by both independent and large mainstream publishers and eagerly sought after by the culture at large. Among its fans is X-Files creator Chris Carter.
Now Adam Parfrey offers a follow-up to that first book. Apocalypse Culture II is an entirely new collection of essays that reflect the most recent revelations of the New World Order. Through the extremes of postmodern culture it details the moral disintegration of the old world. Essays cover biological warfare, taboo art, sexual fetishism, mind control for corporate gain, government sex-slavery, creepy superstars, and more. [via]
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- Apocalypse Culture II: ISBN 0922915571 (0-922915-57-1)
  Softcover, Feral House
Ascent to Civilization: Archaeology of Early Man
by John Gowlett

ISBN 0075443120 (0-07-544312-0)
Softcover, McGraw-Hill College

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Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
by Nicholas Wade

ISBN 1594200793 (1-59420-079-3)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
Nicholas Wades articles are a major reason why the science section has become the most popular, nationwide, in the New York Times. In his groundbreaking Before the Dawn, Wade reveals humanitys origins as never beforea journey made possible only recently by genetic science, whose incredible findings have answered such questions as: What was the first human language like? How large were the first societies, and how warlike were they? When did our ancestors first leave Africa, and by what route did they leave? By eloquently solving these and numerous other mysteries, Wade offers nothing less than a uniquely complete retelling of a story that began 500 centuries ago.

[via]
More editions of Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors:
- Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors: ISBN 014303832X (0-14-303832-X)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
- Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors: ISBN 1594200793 (1-59420-079-3)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future
by Riane Eisler

ISBN 0062502891 (0-06-250289-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
Some books are like revelations, they open the spirit to unimaginable possibilities. The Chalice and the Blade is one of those magnificent key books that can transform us and...initiate fundamental changes in the world. With the most passionate eloquence, Riane Eisler proves that the dream of peace is not an impossible utopia. -- Isabelle Allende, author of The House of the Spirits [via]
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Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature
by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

ISBN 074320249X (0-7432-0249-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster, Incorporated

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Book summary:
"Civilization" is a tricky term, one that means many things to many people. For some, it denotes great buildings, canals, codes of law; for others, it offers a contrast between one group and another, with the advantage always going to the more "civilized" bunch against the "barbaric," "savage," or "primitive."
All such distinctions, writes Oxford University historian Felipe Fernández- Armesto, are arbitrary and laden with subjective value; they speak to unscientific notions of progress, to hidden agendas. What matters, he continues, is the extent to which a culture has developed means to separate itself from nature: "Civilization makes its own habitat. It is civilized in direct proportion to its distance, its difference from the unmodified natural environment." A culture such as the ancient Han Chinese, the medieval highland Maya, or the Renaissance Venetian, then, is highly civilized inasmuch as its members dammed and diverted rivers, drained lakes, stripped forests, and built monumental structures to celebrate their achievements; people content or resigned to "live off the product and inhabit the spaces nature gives them" are markedly less so by virtue of that accommodation.
No culture, Fernández-Armesto writes, is inherently exempt from becoming civilized; nor, he adds, does "civilized" equate to "good." In exploring history as a branch of historical ecology, he sometimes abandons his thesis, intriguing and provocative as it is, to engage in a wide-ranging survey of the world past reminiscent of (but much better written than) Toynbee and Durant, touching on the ancient Greeks here, the herding peoples of the African savanna and Central Asia there, the Moundbuilders of prehistoric North America and the hunting peoples of the Arctic there. Unlike many standard textbooks, his narrative manages to offer something new wherever he turns. Allusive and learned, his book repays close reading--and should inspire plenty of argument along the way. -- Gregory McNamee [via]
More editions of Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature:
- Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature: ISBN 0743202481 (0-7432-0248-1)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster, Incorporated
- Civilizations : Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature: ISBN 074320249X (0-7432-0249-X)
  Softcover, Simon & Schuster, Incorporated
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Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed
by Jared Diamond

ISBN 0143036556 (0-14-303655-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is the glass-half-empty follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. While Guns, Germs, and Steel explained the geographic and environmental reasons why some human populations have flourished, Collapse uses the same factors to examine why ancient societies, including the Anasazi of the American Southwest and the Viking colonies of Greenland, as well as modern ones such as Rwanda, have fallen apart. Not every collapse has an environmental origin, but an eco-meltdown is often the main catalyst, he argues, particularly when combined with society's response to (or disregard for) the coming disaster. Still, right from the outset of Collapse, the author makes clear that this is not a mere environmentalist's diatribe. He begins by setting the book's main question in the small communities of present-day Montana as they face a decline in living standards and a depletion of natural resources. Once-vital mines now leak toxins into the soil, while prion diseases infect some deer and elk and older hydroelectric dams have become decrepit. On all these issues, and particularly with the hot-button topic of logging and wildfires, Diamond writes with equanimity.
Because he's addressing such significant issues within a vast span of time, Diamond can occasionally speak too briefly and assume too much, and at times his shorthand remarks may cause careful readers to raise an eyebrow. But in general, Diamond provides fine and well-reasoned historical examples, making the case that many times, economic and environmental concerns are one and the same. With Collapse, Diamond hopes to jog our collective memory to keep us from falling for false analogies or forgetting prior experiences, and thereby save us from potential devastations to come. While it might seem a stretch to use medieval Greenland and the Maya to convince a skeptic about the seriousness of global warming, it's exactly this type of cross-referencing that makes Collapse so compelling. --Jennifer Buckendorff [via]
More editions of Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed:
- Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed: ISBN 0670033375 (0-670-03337-5)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: ISBN 0143036556 (0-14-303655-6)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach
by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

ISBN 0691082839 (0-691-08283-9)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr

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Book summary:
To understand human evolution, we require, among other things, a theory describing the dynamics of culturally acquired phenotypes. In this book, cavalli-sforza and feldman present a series of theoretical models that represent an important beginning toward such a theory. (bioscience [via]
More editions of Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach:
- Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach: ISBN 0691082839 (0-691-08283-9)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think
by Robert Aunger

ISBN 0743201507 (0-7432-0150-7)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster

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Book summary:
From biology to culture to the new new economy, the buzzword on everyone's lips is "meme." How do animals learn things? How does human culture evolve? How does viral marketing work? The answer to these disparate questions and even to what is the nature of thought itself is, simply, the meme. For decades researchers have been convinced that memes were The Next Big Thing for the understanding of society and ourselves. But no one has so far been able to define what they are. Until now.
Here, for the first time, Robert Aunger outlines what a meme physically is, how memes originated, how they developed, and how they have made our brains into their survival systems. They are thoughts. They are parasites. They are in control. A meme is a distinct pattern of electrical charges in a node in our brains that reproduces a thousand times faster than a bacterium. Memes have found ways to leap from one brain to another. A number of them are being replicated in your brain as you read this paragraph.
In 1976 the biologist Richard Dawkins suggested that all animals -- including humans -- are puppets and that genes hold the strings. That is, we are robots serving as life support for the genes that control us. And all they want to do is replicate themselves. But then, we do lots of things that don't seem to help genes replicate. We decide not to have children, we waste our time doing dangerous things like mountain climbing, or boring things like reading, or stupid things like smoking that don't seem to help genes get copied into the next generation. We do all sorts of cultural things for reasons that don't seem to have anything to do with genes. Fashions in sports, books, clothes, ideas, politics, lifestyles come and go and give our lives meaning, so how can we be gene robots?
Dawkins recognized that something else was going on. We communicate with one another and we get ideas, and these ideas seem to have a life of their own. Maybe there was something called memes that were like thought genes. Maybe our bodies were gene robots and our minds were meme robots. That would mean that what we think is not the result of our own creativity, but rather the result of the evolutionary flow of memes as they wash through us.
What is the biological reality of an idea with a life of its own? What is a thought gene? It's a meme. And no one before Robert Aunger has established what it physically must be. This elegant, paradigm-shifting analysis identifies how memes replicate in our brains, how they evolved, and how they use artifacts like books and photographs and advertisements to get from one brain to another. Destined to inflame arguments about free will, open doors to new ways of sharing our thoughts, and provide a revolutionary explanation of consciousness, The Electric Meme will change the way each of us thinks about our minds, our cultures, and our daily choices. [via]
More editions of The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think:
- The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think: ISBN 0743201507 (0-7432-0150-7)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Evolution of Cooperation
by Robert Axelrod

ISBN 0465005640 (0-465-00564-0)
Softcover, Basic Books

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Book summary:
This widely praised and much-discussed book explores how cooperation can emerge in a world of self-seeking egoistswhether superpowers, businesses, or individualswhen there is no central authority to police their actions.
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Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind
by Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen

ISBN 0521663830 (0-521-66383-0)
Softcover, Cambridge University Press

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Book summary:
In Figments of Reality, mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen's thesis (or schtick) is that human minds are produced by complicity between human brains and culture. In their earlier book The Collapse of Chaos, Stewart and Cohen used the power of Humpty Dumpty to redefine complicity to mean properties that emerge from the mutual interaction of complex systems. "Our minds, our societies, our cultures, and our global multiculture, are all evolving within a reality that we mould in images of our own creation. We are a figment of reality--but reality is increasingly a figment of us."
Reality is not the only figment in the book. Stewart and Cohen use a group of eight "weird alien beings from the planet Zarathustra, resembling fluffy yellow ostriches but with much stranger habits" as a sounding board, as comedy relief, and as a philosophical-experimental playpen. To quote:
"Ringmaster: What is this?
Liar-to-children [=teacher]: A continuing educational narrative of some kind, Ringmaster. Based upon a revered/reviled (delete whichever is inapplicable) ancient text. [Watches the screen and interprets the tale that unfolds--a long and dramatic story of an exploding universe, elements born in stars, complex carbon-based molecular machines, a doubly-helical genetic molecule, the origins of life, evolution, sense organs, brains, minds, and intelligence.]
R: What a fascinating narrative.
LtC: And such a convincing story.
Destroyer-of-facts [=scientist]: Such vigor and power! Such unified scientific insight!
R: Not a word out of place, no loose ends--amazing!
ALL: [In unison] Must be wrong, then."

Read it and think, read it and giggle, read it and come back for more. At long last, a worthy successor to Gödel, Escher, Bach, updated, twisted, and put through a Monty Python filter. [via]
More editions of Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind:
- Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind: ISBN 0521571553 (0-521-57155-3)
  Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
- Figments of Reality : The Evolution of the Curious Mind: ISBN 0521663830 (0-521-66383-0)
  Softcover, Cambridge University Press
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Foundations of Social Evolution
by Steven A. Frank

ISBN 0691059349 (0-691-05934-9)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr

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Book summary:
This is a masterly theoretical treatment of one of the central problems in evolutionary biology, the evolution of social cooperation and conflict. Steven Frank tackles the problem with a highly original combination of approaches: game theory, classical models of natural selection, quantitative genetics, and kin selection. He unites these with the best of economic thought: a clear theory of model formation and comparative statics, the development of simple methods for analyzing complex problems, and notions of information and rationality. Using this unique, multidisciplinary approach, Frank makes major advances in understanding the foundations of social evolution.
Frank begins by developing the three measures of value used in biology--marginal value, reproductive value, and kin selection. He then combines these measures into a coherent framework, providing the first unified analysis of social evolution in its full ecological and demographic context. Frank also extends the theory of kin selection by showing that relatedness has two distinct meanings. The first is a measure of information about social partners, with close affinity to theories of correlated equilibrium and Bayesian rationality in economic game theory. The second is a measure of the fidelity by which characters are transmitted to future generations--an extended notion of heritability.
Throughout, Frank illustrates his methods with many examples, including a complete reformulation of the theory of sex allocation. The book also provides a unique "how-to" guide for constructing models of social behavior. It is essential reading for evolutionary biologists and for economists, mathematicians, and others interested in natural selection.
[via]
More editions of Foundations of Social Evolution:
- Foundations of Social Evolution: ISBN 0691059349 (0-691-05934-9)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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Future Shock
by Alvin Toffler

ISBN 0553144316 (0-553-14431-6)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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Book summary:
Paperback. [via]
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- Future Shock: ISBN 0553144316 (0-553-14431-6)
  Softcover, Bantam Books
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The German Ideology
by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, C. J. Arthur

ISBN 0853152179 (0-85315-217-9)
Hardcover, Lawrence & Wishart

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Book summary:
This edition makes easily accessible the most important parts of Marx's and Engels's major early philosophical work, "The German Ideology", a text of key importance for students. [via]
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- The German Ideology: ISBN 0853152179 (0-85315-217-9)
  Hardcover, Lawrence & Wishart
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The German Ideology: Including Thesis on Feuerbach
by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

ISBN 1573922587 (1-57392-258-7)
Softcover, Prometheus Books

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Book summary:
Nearly two years before his powerful Communist Manifesto, Marx (1818-1883) co-wrote The German Ideology in 1845 with friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels expounding a new political worldview, including positions on materialism, labor, production, alienation, the expansion of capitalism, class conflict, revolution, and eventually communism. They chart the course of "true" socialism based on Hegel's dialectic, while criticizing the ideas of Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach. Marx expanded his criticism of the latter in his now famous Theses on Feuerbach, found after Marx's death and published by Engels in 1888. Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy, also found among the posthumous papers of Marx, is a fragment of an introduction to his main works. Combining these three works, this volume is essential for an understanding of Marxism. [via]
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- The German Ideology: Including Thesis on Feuerbach: ISBN 1573922587 (1-57392-258-7)
  Softcover, Prometheus Books
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German Ideology, Part 1 and Selections from Parts 2 and 3
by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Christopher John Arthur

ISBN 0717803023 (0-7178-0302-3)
Softcover, Intl Pub

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Book summary:
2011 Reprint of 1939 Edition. Parts I & III of "The German Ideology". Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Originally published by the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow in 1939. "The German Ideology" was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels circa 1846, but published later. The original edition was divided into three parts. Part I, the most significant, is perhaps the classic statement of the Marxist theory of history and his much cited "materialist conception of history". Since its first publication, Marxist scholars have found Part I "The German Ideology" particularly valuable since it is perhaps the most comprehensive statement of Marx's theory of history stated at such length and detail. Part II consisted of many satirically written polemics against Bruno Bauer, other Young Hegelians, and Max Stirner. These polemical and highly partisan sections of the "German Ideology" have not been reproduced in this edition. We reprint Parts I & Parts III only. Part III treats Marx & Engels' conception of true socialism and is reprinted in its entirety. Part II has not been reprinted in this edition in order to produce a small and inexpensive book which contains the gist of the "German Ideology". Appendix contains the "Theses on Feuerbach." Index of authors, with scholarly citations and footnotes. [via]
More editions of German Ideology, Part 1 and Selections from Parts 2 and 3:
- German Ideology, Part 1 and Selections from Parts 2 and 3: ISBN 0717803023 (0-7178-0302-3)
  Softcover, Intl Pub
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Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language
by Robin Dunbar

ISBN 0674363361 (0-674-36336-1)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr

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Book summary:
What a big brain we have for all the small talk we make. It's an evolutionary riddle that at long last makes sense in this intriguing book about what gossip has done for our talkative species. Psychologist Robin Dunbar looks at gossip as an instrument of social order and cohesion--much like the endless grooming with which our primate cousins tend to their social relationships.
Apes and monkeys, humanity's closest kin, differ from other animals in the intensity of these relationships. All their grooming is not so much about hygiene as it is about cementing bonds, making friends, and influencing fellow primates. But for early humans, grooming as a way to social success posed a problem: given their large social groups of 150 or so, our earliest ancestors would have had to spend almost half their time grooming one another--an impossible burden. What Dunbar suggests--and his research, whether in the realm of primatology or in that of gossip, confirms--is that humans developed language to serve the same purpose, but far more efficiently. It seems there is nothing idle about chatter, which holds together a diverse, dynamic group--whether of hunter-gatherers, soldiers, or workmates.
Anthropologists have long assumed that language developed in relationships among males during activities such as hunting. Dunbar's original and extremely interesting studies suggest otherwise: that language in fact evolved in response to our need to keep up to date with friends and family. We needed conversation to stay in touch, and we still need it in ways that will not be satisfied by teleconferencing, email, or any other communication technology. As Dunbar shows, the impersonal world of cyberspace will not fulfill our primordial need for face-to-face contact.
From the nit-picking of chimpanzees to our chats at coffee break, from neuroscience to paleoanthropology, Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language offers a provocative view of what makes us human, what holds us together, and what sets us apart.
[via]
More editions of Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language:
- Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language: ISBN 0674363345 (0-674-36334-5)
  Hardcover, Harvard University Press
- Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language: ISBN 0674363361 (0-674-36336-1)
  Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond

ISBN 0393317552 (0-393-31755-2)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
With a new chapter. The phenomenal bestseller; over 1.5 million copies sold; is now a major PBS special.Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the television series. Until around 11,000 BC, all peoples were still Stone Age hunter/gatherers. At that point, a great divide occurred in the rates that human societies evolved. In Eurasia, parts of the Americas, and Africa, farming became the prevailing mode of existence when indigenous wild plants and animals were domesticated by prehistoric planters and herders. As Jared Diamond vividly reveals, the very people who gained a head start in producing food would collide with preliterate cultures, shaping the modern world through conquest, displacement, and genocide.The paths that lead from scattered centers of food to broad bands of settlement had a great deal to do with climate and geography. But how did differences in societies arise? Why weren't native Australians, Americans, or Africans the ones to colonize Europe? Diamond dismantles pernicious racial theories tracing societal differences to biological differences. He assembles convincing evidence linking germs to domestication of animals, germs that Eurasians then spread in epidemic proportions in their voyages of discovery. In its sweep, Guns, Germs and Steel encompasses the rise of agriculture, technology, writing, government, and religion, providing a unifying theory of human history as intriguing as the histories of dinosaurs and glaciers. 32 illustrations [via]
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Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companion
by Jared Diamond

ISBN 1586638637 (1-58663-863-7)
Softcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc

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Book summary:
Scholar and professor Jared Diamond made a huge splash with this fascinating but controversial book, which argues that geography and environment have almost singlehandedly determined the course of human history. Dig deeper into his contentions with the information inside this invaluable reader's handbook:
- Why did Europe colonize Africa and Asia rather than the other way around?
- Why is geography the most important factor in human history?
- How has the rest of the scientific community received Diamond's theory?
[via]
More editions of Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companion:
- Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companion: ISBN 1586638637 (1-58663-863-7)
  Softcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc
Individual Strategy and Social Structure: An Evolutionary Theory of Institutions
by H. Peyton Young

ISBN 0691086877 (0-691-08687-7)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr

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Book summary:
In this volume, the author argues for a realistic view in which people have a limited understanding of their environment. He seeks to show how the cumulative experiences of many individuals coalesce over time into customs, norms and institutions that govern economic and social life. He develops a theory that predicts how such institutions evolve and characterizes their welfare properties. [via]
More editions of Individual Strategy and Social Structure: An Evolutionary Theory of Institutions:
- Individual Strategy and Social Structure: An Evolutionary Theory of Institutions: ISBN 069102684X (0-691-02684-X)
  Hardcover, Princeton Univ Pr
- Individual Strategy and Social Structure: An Evolutionary Theory of Institutions: ISBN 0691086877 (0-691-08687-7)
  Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
by Robert Wright

ISBN 0679758941 (0-679-75894-1)
Softcover, Vintage Books

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Book summary:
Nonzero, from New Republic writer Robert Wright, is a difficult and important book--well worth reading--addressing the controversial question of purpose in evolution. Using language suggesting that natural selection is a designer's tool, Wright inevitably draws the conclusion that evolution is goal-oriented (or at least moves toward inevitable ends independently of environmental or contingent variables).

The underlying reason that non-zero-sum games wind up being played well is the same in biological evolution as in cultural evolution. Whether you are a bunch of genes or a bunch of memes, if you're all in the same boat you'll tend to perish unless you are conducive to productive coordination.... Genetic evolution thus tends to create smoothly integrated organisms, and cultural evolution tends to create smoothly integrated groups of organisms.
Admittedly, it's as hard to think clearly about natural selection as it is to think about God, but that makes it just as important to acknowledge our biases and try to exclude them from our conclusions. It is this that makes Nonzero potentially unsatisfying to the scientifically literate. Time after time we've seen thinkers try to find in biological evolution a "drive toward complexity" that might explain all sorts of other phenomena from economics to spirituality. Some authors, like Teilhard de Chardin, have much to offer the careful reader who takes pains to read metaphorically. Others--legions of cranks--provide nothing but opaque diatribes culminating in often-bizarre assertions proven to nobody but the author. Wright is much closer to de Chardin along this axis; his anthropological scholarship is particularly noteworthy, and his grasp of world history is excellent. Unfortunately, he has the advocate's willingness to blind himself to disagreeable facts and to muddle over concepts whose clarity would be poisonous to his positions: try to pin him down on what he means by complexity, for example. Still, his thesis that human cultures are historically striving for cooperative, nonzero-sum situations is heartening and compelling; even though it's not supported by biology, it's not knocked down, either. If the reader can work around the undefined assumptions, Wright's charm and obvious interest in planetary survival make Nonzero a worthy read. If the first chapter's title--"The Ladder of Cultural Evolution"--makes you cringe, the last one--"You Call This a God?"--will make you smile. --Rob Lightner [via]
More editions of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny:
- Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny: ISBN 0679442529 (0-679-44252-9)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
- Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny: ISBN 0679758941 (0-679-75894-1)
  Softcover, Vintage Books
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Origin of Conciousness
by Jaynes

ISBN 0802023061 (0-8020-2306-1)
Hardcover, Univ of Toronto Pr

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Book summary:
At the heart of this book is the revolutionary idea that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution. Rather, Jaynes presents consciousness as a learned process that evolved from an earlier hallucinatory mentality only three thousand years ago. The implications extend into every aspect if human life. [via]
More editions of Origin of Conciousness:
- Origin of Conciousness: ISBN 0802023061 (0-8020-2306-1)
  Hardcover, Univ of Toronto Pr
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The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
by Julian Jaynes

ISBN 0618057072 (0-618-05707-2)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin

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At the heart of this book is the revolutionary idea that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution. Rather, Jaynes presents consciousness as a learned process that evolved from an earlier hallucinatory mentality only three thousand years ago. The implications extend into every aspect if human life. [via]
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The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution
by Andrew Bard Schmookler

ISBN 0791424200 (0-7914-2420-0)
Softcover, State Univ of New York Pr

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Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity's Future
by Duane Elgin

ISBN 0060934999 (0-06-093499-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
Duane Elgin's bestselling Voluntary Simplicity changed the lives of thousands and was called the "bible" of the simplicity movement by the Wall Street Journal. Now in Promise Ahead, he helps readers take the next step. Elgin outlines four emerging "opportunity trends," including voluntary simplicitythat can help surmount social, economic, and environmental challenges we all face. Other positive trends include using the Internet" to leverage swift grass-roots change, heeding scientific evidence of the delicate balance that comprises the universe, and utilizing the power of compassionate love to heal humanity's wounds. Succinct and hopeful, Promise Ahead shows how we are uniquely poised to use our ingenuity to leap into a promising future. [via]
More editions of Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity's Future:
- Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity's Future: ISBN 0688171915 (0-688-17191-5)
  Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers
- Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity's Future: ISBN 0060934999 (0-06-093499-9)
  Softcover, Harpercollins
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The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
by Matt Ridley

ISBN 0060556579 (0-06-055657-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
Two fascinating questions lie at the heart of The Red Queen: Why is Homo sapiens a sexual species, and what implications does this have for human nature? That man is sexual may seem unremarkable, yet in fact not all plants and animals need to have sex to reproduce; simple cloning is practiced by many animals with much greater efficiency. To understand how life evolves, and what benefit sex provides for humans, we must think like the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, who had to keep running just to stay in place. According to a controversial yet persuasive new theory, evolution is not about progress, but about changing in order to survive. Because humans are in a perpetual battle with the parasites lurking within our bodies, we need to be able to change molecular locks as fast as parasites invent new keys. Sex enables us to alter genetic combinations every generation. Sex, then, is a vital weapon in disease resistance. It enables us to change, not so we progress ahead, but so we avoid falling behind. But what does all this mean for human nature? From a lucid overview of the Red Queen theory, Matt Ridley follows the logic of its argument into the heart of human behavior. For just as the human eye is a product of evolution, so is human nature. Evolutionary theory provides the clues to help us understand fundamental facts about human beings, from our fashion consciousness to our "system of monogamy plagued by adultery." Ridley's probing mind asks a series of provocative questions. Is mankind naturally polygamous like most of our ape relatives? Are men and women mentally different as well as physically, and if so why? Why do people share so many sexual habits withswallows? Are our notions of human beauty arbitrary, or is there method in them? Jumping into the middle of the debate over the definition of "human nature, " The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved. It throws fresh light [via]
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The Sex Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior
by Helen E. Fisher

ISBN 0688015999 (0-688-01599-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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The Social Animal
by W. G. Runciman, Robert K. Merton

ISBN 0472067303 (0-472-06730-3)
Softcover, Univ of Michigan Pr

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Book summary:
W. G. Runciman's masterly book sets out the present extent of our knowledge about how human groups, communities, institutions, and societies work and the social forces that act upon people who live within them. In a brief span, Runciman conveys both how fascinating the study of society is and what a particularly exciting time this is for that study, with all the developments being made in the behavioral sciences, whether in demography, linguistics, or economics, or in genetics, biological anthropology, and developmental and cognitive psychology. The linking theme of the book is an approach to sociology based not on the outdated dogmas of Marxism or Social Darwinism but on current neo-evolutionary theory.
W. G. Runciman is Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His previous books include Relative Deprivation and Social Justice, A Critique of Max Weber's Philosophy of Social Science, and his three-volume A Treatise on Social Theory. He is also Chairman of the shipping group Andrew Weir & Co. Ltd. and Deputy Chairman of the Financial Services Authority. He chaired the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice in England and Wales 1991-93.
[via]
More editions of The Social Animal:
- The Social Animal: ISBN 047209730X (0-472-09730-X)
  Hardcover, Univ of Michigan Pr
- The Social Animal: ISBN 0472067303 (0-472-06730-3)
  Softcover, Univ of Michigan Pr
The Social Cage: Human Nature and the Evolution of Society
by Jonathan H. Turner, Alexandra Maryanski

ISBN 0804720029 (0-8047-2002-9)
Hardcover, Stanford Univ Pr

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- The Social Cage: Human Nature and the Evolution of Society: ISBN 0804720037 (0-8047-2003-7)
  Softcover, Stanford Univ Pr
- The Social Cage: Human Nature and the Evolution of Society: ISBN 0804720029 (0-8047-2002-9)
  Hardcover, Stanford Univ Pr
Social Evolution
by Mark Pluciennik

ISBN 0715632876 (0-7156-3287-6)
Softcover, Intl Pub Marketing Inc

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- Social Evolution: ISBN 0715632876 (0-7156-3287-6)
  Softcover, Intl Pub Marketing Inc
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The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal
by Jared M. Diamond

ISBN 0060845503 (0-06-084550-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
Jared Diamond states the theme of his book up-front: "How the human species changed, within a short time, from just another species of big mammal to a world conqueror; and how we acquired the capacity to reverse all that progress overnight." The Third Chimpanzee is, in many ways, a prequel to Diamond's prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. While Guns examines "the fates of human societies," this work surveys the longer sweep of human evolution, from our origin as just another chimpanzee a few million years ago. Diamond writes:

It's obvious that humans are unlike all animals. It's also obvious that we're a species of big mammal down to the minutest details of our anatomy and our molecules. That contradiction is the most fascinating feature of the human species.
The chapters in The Third Chimpanzee on the oddities of human reproductive biology were later expanded in Why Is Sex Fun? Here, they're linked to Diamond's views of human psychology and history.
Diamond is officially a physiologist at UCLA medical school, but he's also one of the best birdwatchers in the world. The current scientific consensus that "primitive" humans created ecological catastrophes in the Pacific islands, Australia, and the New World owes a great deal to his fieldwork and insight. In Diamond's view, the current global ecological crisis isn't due to modern technology per se, but to basic weaknesses in human nature. But, he says, "I'm cautiously optimistic. If we will learn from our past that I have traced, our own future may yet prove brighter than that of the other two chimpanzees." --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
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Third Wave
by Alvin Toffler

ISBN 0553246984 (0-553-24698-4)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler [via]
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Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society
by Aaron Lynch

ISBN 0465084672 (0-465-08467-2)
Softcover, Basic Books

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Book summary:
Why do certain ideas become popular? The naive view is that it's because they're true, or at least justified. This fascinating book, influenced by evolutionary biology and epidemiology, is the first full-scale examination of some of the other reasons. Consider Aaron Lynch's example of optimism--it may not be true or warranted, but it tends to prevail because optimists tend to have more children to pass along their outlook to. Sometimes, Lynch points out, there is a paradoxical but predictable expansion-contraction pattern to the social spread of ideas. If nothing else, lobbyists need to look into this stuff to see which side their bread is really buttered on. Warning: this book is densely written. But it's worth the wade. [via]
More editions of Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society:
- Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society: ISBN 0465084664 (0-465-08466-4)
  Hardcover, Perseus Books Group
- Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society: ISBN 0465084672 (0-465-08467-2)
  Softcover, Basic Books
A Treatise on Social Theory Vol. 2 : Substantive Social Theory
by Walter G. Runciman

ISBN 0521369835 (0-521-36983-5)
Softcover, Cambridge University Press

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- A Treatise on Social Theory Vol. 2 : Substantive Social Theory: ISBN 0521369835 (0-521-36983-5)
  Softcover, Cambridge University Press
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World Societies: The Evolution Of Human Social Life
by Stephen K. Sanderson, Arthur S. Alderson

ISBN 0205359485 (0-205-35948-5)
Softcover, Allyn & Bacon

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Book summary:
This new book examines the entire range of human societies, past and present, and the various forces that brought about social evolution. It focuses on the roles of economics, technology, population, and ecology in the long-term evolution of human societies; and provides detailed coverage of the rise of capitalism, modern industrial societies, and globalization.
[via]
More editions of World Societies: The Evolution Of Human Social Life:
- World Societies: The Evolution Of Human Social Life: ISBN 0205359485 (0-205-35948-5)
  Softcover, Allyn & Bacon