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This book embeds a novel evolutionary analysis of human group selection within a comprehensive overview of multilevel selection theory, a theory wherein evolution proceeds at the level of individual organisms and collectives, such as human families, tribes, states, and empires. Where previous works on the topic have variously supported multilevel selection with logic, theory, experimental data, or via review of the zoological literature; in this book the authors uniquely establish the validity of human group selection as a historical evolutionary process within a multilevel selection framework.
Select portions of the historical record are examined from a multilevel selectionist perspective, such that clashing civilizations, decline and fall, law, custom, war, genocide, ostracism, banishment, and the like are viewed with the end of understanding their implications for internal cohesion, external defense, and population demography. In doing so, its authors advance the potential for further interdisciplinary study in fostering, for instance, the convergence of history and biology. This work will provide fresh insights not only for evolutionists but also for researchers working across the social sciences and humanities.
List of contents
1. An Intellectual History of Multilevel Selection from Darwin to Dawkins.- 2. An Intellectual History of Multilevel Selection: Reformulation and Resuscitation.- 3. Theoretical Foundations of Multilevel Selection Among Humans.- 4. Aggregation: From Ethnic and Regional Competition to Group Selection at the Level of States and Nations.- 5. Growth, Maintenance, Control, and Competition.- 6. Decline.- 7. The Collapse and Regeneration of Complex Societies.- 8. Chimpanzee Intercommunity Conflict: Fitness Outcomes, Power Imbalances, and Multilevel Selection.- 9. Lethal Intergroup Competition in Non-State Societies: From Small-Scale Raids to Large-Scale Battles.- 10. The Sociopolitical Integrity of the Roman State: Intragroup Competition, Intergroup Competition, and Economic Dynamics.- 11. Dear Enemies: French and English Power Ratios.- 12. Expansion, Fission, and Decline: England and Anglo America.
About the author
Steven C. Hertler is a licensed examining psychologist and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the College of Saint Elizabeth, USA.
Aurelio José Figueredo is Professor of Psychology, Family Studies and Human Development at the University of Arizona, USA. Dr. Figueredo also serves as Director of the Ethology and Evolutionary Psychology (EEP) Laboratory.
Mateo Peñaherrera-Aguirre is a Ph.D. candidate in the Cognitive and Neural Systems Program and a researcher at the University of Arizona, USA.
