The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall - Hardcover

Mark W. Moffett is a biologist and research associate at the Smithsonian, and a visiting scholar in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He has also authored four books. Called a "daring eco-adventurer" by Margaret Atwood, his writing has appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing and he has been a regular guest on The Colbert Report, Conan, NPR's Fresh Air, and CBS Sunday Morning.

"[An] uplifiting perspective...mesmerizing"―The Financial Times

"The Human Swarm is a book of wonders"―The New Statesman

"Fascinating... a delightfully accessible and ingenious series of lessons on humans and our societies."―Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"[Moffett] intrigues by setting human societies in the context of those of the animal kingdom. This fine work should have broad appeal to anyone curious about human societies, which is basically everyone."―Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A well-researched and richly detailed account of why societies have been a fundamental part of the human experience since our earliest ancestors. Highly recommended for fans of Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail or Succeed and Yuval Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind."―Library Journal

"[An] enticing whirlwind tour of the fascinating patterns of behaviour and structures of societies revealed through the varied lives of people and animals across the globe."―Nature

"Our times are filled with garage start-ups that become Silicon Valley behemoths overnight. Such scaling-up pales in comparison to humans going from hunter-gatherer bands to our globalized world in the blink of an evolutionary eye -- and thus now, a stranger a continent away can be killed when we press a button operating a drone, or rescued when we press a button marked 'Donate now.' In The Human Swarm, Mark Moffett charts the science of this scaling up of human societies, and its unlikely evolutionary consequences. This highly readable book is ambitious in its interdisciplinary breadth, rigorous in its science, and deeply thought-provoking in its implications."―Robert Sapolsky, author of Behave

"The Human Swarm is surely the most accurate, most comprehensive, most original explanation of our social existence that we're ever likely to see, one jaw-dropping revelation after another, most of them astonishing, all of them fascinating. It's true without question, which seems obvious as you're reading, and it's very well written -- a joy to read."―Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Harmless People

"A tour-de-force."―Donald Johanson, discoverer of the famous missing-link fossil "Lucy" and founder of the Institute of Human Origins

"Extraordinary! It's amazing to follow Mark Moffett's thoughts and knowledge and take a mental trips that go within a span of seconds from ants to Michael Corleone."―Isabella Rossellini, actress