Reviews for the Human Swarm

“The Human Swarm is a remarkable intellectual achievement of sustained intensity, to be commended for navigating an important yet difficult area in between biology, psychology, sociology, economics, history, and philosophy.” —Quarterly Review of Biology

“Mark Moffett’s book [falls] in the epic achievement category” —Forbes

“A truer statement hasn’t been uttered: “Our “groupiness” shapes human history.”  Mark Moffett’s book is a wide-ranging, deeply interesting analysis of how large numbers of individual agents become a society.  His travels in the world and through vast intellectual landscapes give him a unique view of why we are the way we are, both in our similarity to other living beings and our differences from them – our ability to include once alien groups into our own, for example.  There is no other book I’ve read…

“[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

—New York Times (Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter’s Daughter)

“Moffett looks at traditional theories of how and why human societies evolved—because Homo sapiens can deliberate, coordinate, and collaborate—and proposes an even more fundamental reason: humans’ distinctive manner of establishing identities.” —Harvard Magazine

“Extraordinary! I am amazed to follow Mark Moffett’s thoughts and knowledge and take a mental trips that goes within a span of seconds from ants to Michael Corleone.” —Isabella Rossellini, actress who explores animal behavior

“This is a book of amazing ideas, many of them counter­intuitive. Mark Moffett’s astounding stories of animal societies persuaded me that the future of human cities have been foretold by the ants. Read this manifesto if you like to have your mind changed.”  —Kevin Kelly,  founder of Wired magazine, futurist, and author of The Inevitable and What Technology Wants

“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 and A Million Years with You