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neoteotihuacan's review against another edition
5.0
This is a big book, with a capital “B.” It is brimming with big ideas and leans heavily on a cross-disciplinary approach to understanding this basic set of questions: what is a society? And how does society relate to humanity?
Does Mr. Moffett get it right? Largely, yes, I think. This is a breathtaking scope of research and thinking. I mean, 17% of the book is basically a works cited page, if that tells you anything, which is not that normal for a science book meant for popular consumption. The book is worth reading and thinking about, most certainly. It is one eye-popping revelation after another.
Moffett expands on understanding what a society is by comparing societies of various styles throughout nature - elephants, lions, dolphins, chimpanzees and bonobos and, especially, ants, among others.
It turns out that society maketh the human. Or, rather, we are so predisposed to the mechanics of a society that it is as natural as breathing...that if one were to take it away, part of the definition of what it means to be human might whither away and die. You can't pull a human out of societal thinking any more than you can pull an ant out of a colony and expect them to survive.
It is with ants that humanity most closely aligns, in terms of societal organization. Both humans and ant species have massive, highly organized, but, crucially, anonymous societies. Chimps and dolphins and elephants all, more or less, have to know each other to function in a society. But with people and ants, and other fully eusocial creatures, individuals don’t have to personally know each other in order for the whole thing to function. "The Human Swarm" picks up a little bit of the lead that Dr. E.O. Wilson lays down in his big idea book, "The Social Conquest Of Earth." Knowingly, too - "The Human Swarm" is dedicated to Wilson.
Just stop and think about how strange it is that humans and ants live in gigantic, anonymous societies. This is how the book opens, by asking you to imagine you are in a local coffee shop. You walk in and you see people everywhere, but you personally know none of them. And nothing happens. You buy some coffee...you sit down to read a book and no one bothers you and you bother no one. It is a marvelous day. But, imagine chimpanzees, our closest living primate cousins, upon walking into a coffee shop filled with other, unknown chimps...well, it would be a bloodbath of violence. From there Moffett begins an insightful deep dive on how intertwined, how ingrained, how predictive societies can be for humans.
I not only recommend this book for reading and understanding who you are, who we all are, but I recommend that it be mandatory in public schools. You will come away from this experience understanding a great deal more about how humans work than you ever thought possible, something of which every modern society needs. Moffett pulls in anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, psychologists...all manner of research to explore the question of society and, in the end, it'll remake your understanding of the world. Nationalism, nations, immigrants, ethnicity, family, slavery, economies, all those pesky societal markers we carry around in our heads and on our person marking which group and sub-group we belong to, consciously and unconsciously, ...you'll see the world with new eyes. And that is the best kind of reading experience.
Does Mr. Moffett get it right? Largely, yes, I think. This is a breathtaking scope of research and thinking. I mean, 17% of the book is basically a works cited page, if that tells you anything, which is not that normal for a science book meant for popular consumption. The book is worth reading and thinking about, most certainly. It is one eye-popping revelation after another.
Moffett expands on understanding what a society is by comparing societies of various styles throughout nature - elephants, lions, dolphins, chimpanzees and bonobos and, especially, ants, among others.
It turns out that society maketh the human. Or, rather, we are so predisposed to the mechanics of a society that it is as natural as breathing...that if one were to take it away, part of the definition of what it means to be human might whither away and die. You can't pull a human out of societal thinking any more than you can pull an ant out of a colony and expect them to survive.
It is with ants that humanity most closely aligns, in terms of societal organization. Both humans and ant species have massive, highly organized, but, crucially, anonymous societies. Chimps and dolphins and elephants all, more or less, have to know each other to function in a society. But with people and ants, and other fully eusocial creatures, individuals don’t have to personally know each other in order for the whole thing to function. "The Human Swarm" picks up a little bit of the lead that Dr. E.O. Wilson lays down in his big idea book, "The Social Conquest Of Earth." Knowingly, too - "The Human Swarm" is dedicated to Wilson.
Just stop and think about how strange it is that humans and ants live in gigantic, anonymous societies. This is how the book opens, by asking you to imagine you are in a local coffee shop. You walk in and you see people everywhere, but you personally know none of them. And nothing happens. You buy some coffee...you sit down to read a book and no one bothers you and you bother no one. It is a marvelous day. But, imagine chimpanzees, our closest living primate cousins, upon walking into a coffee shop filled with other, unknown chimps...well, it would be a bloodbath of violence. From there Moffett begins an insightful deep dive on how intertwined, how ingrained, how predictive societies can be for humans.
I not only recommend this book for reading and understanding who you are, who we all are, but I recommend that it be mandatory in public schools. You will come away from this experience understanding a great deal more about how humans work than you ever thought possible, something of which every modern society needs. Moffett pulls in anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, psychologists...all manner of research to explore the question of society and, in the end, it'll remake your understanding of the world. Nationalism, nations, immigrants, ethnicity, family, slavery, economies, all those pesky societal markers we carry around in our heads and on our person marking which group and sub-group we belong to, consciously and unconsciously, ...you'll see the world with new eyes. And that is the best kind of reading experience.
jessjess125's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
tomovon's review
2.0
I read more about animal societies than I wanted
and less about human societies than I needed.
and less about human societies than I needed.
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