"There aren't many highly cooperative species--but they nearly cover the planet. Ants alone account for a quarter of all animal matter. Yet the human capacity to work together leaves every other species standing. We organize ourselves into communities of hundreds of millions of individuals, inhabit every continent, and send people into space. Human beings are nature's greatest team players. And the truly astonding thing is, we only started our steep climb to the top of the rankings--overtaking wasps, bees, termites and ants--in the last 10,000 years. Genetic evolution can't explain this anomaly. Something else is going on. How did we become the ultrasocial animal? Follow the evolutionary scientist Peter Turchin on a epic journey through time. From stone-age assassins to the orbiting cathedrals of the space age, from bloodthirsty god-kings to India's first vegetarian emperor, discover the secret history of our species--and the evolutionary logic that governed it all." -- Cover, p. [4].