Wired for culture: the natural history of human cooperation Pagel, Mark D.

We humans left Africa less than a hundred thousand years ago, yet in this comparatively short time there has been a staggering explosion of cultures. What caused this blooming of diversity? Why, for example, are there so many mutually incomprehensible languages, even close together within small territories? Why do we wrap ourselves in flags, or define ourselves in opposition to others? In Wired for Culture, Mark Pagel uses the latest research in evolutionary biology to tell the story of how our success as a species has in fact depended on our facility for culture.

The existence of our amazingly diverse cultures throughout the planet has always been seen as a product of geography combined with our inherent traits of consciousness, empathy, language and our extraordinary intelligence. But Pagel shows how we've had it the wrong way round. Many of these inherent traits cannot exist without culture. Indeed, a capacity for culture may be better viewed as an inherent trait in itself. Every human group wants to carve out its own identity. It is this that truly distinguishes us from our closest ancestors, and ensured we survived, while they declined and became extinct.

Wired for Culture is a fascinating history of culture's role in natural selection, which will change how we view ourselves, not just as individuals, but as a species of communities.