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

If a chimpanzee ventures in to the territory of the different group, it’ll almost certainly be killed. But a New Yorker can soar to Los Angeles–or Borneo–with very little fear. Psychologists have done little to describe this: for a long time, they have kept our biology places a hard upper limit–about 150 people–on the size of our social organizations. But human being societies are in fact vastly larger. Just how do we manage–by and large–to get along with each various other?

In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Tag W. Moffett attracts on results in psychology, sociology and anthropology to explain the sociable adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the stress between identification and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Weapons, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human being Swarm uncovers how mankind made sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity–and what it will take to sustain them.