The Origin of Politics: Human Nature and the Shaping of Political Systems

The renowned New York Times bestselling author of Before the Dawn breaks down the startling ways that evolution explains why societies succeed and fail. 

In the modern world, human nature is seldom taken into account by those who would reshape society. Nicholas Wade argues that’s a terrible mistake.

Human nature, in the view of the progressive left, is easily ignored or else shaped into whatever the latest political doctrine may require. But the conservative view, that social engineering can never change human nature for the better, is not true either.  

In this deeply researched survey of biological and political history, Wade reveals the effect of ideologies that ignore human nature. Marx and Engels proposed to eliminate the family as a social unit. Their followers have sought to overturn the patriarchy and divert allegiance from the family to the state. In reality, while some policies influence human nature for the better, like those that have abolished tribalism, others, such as socialism, conflict with human nature and undermine the operation of a society.

Combining the scope of Yuval Noah Harari with the political savvy of Francis Fukuyama, The Origin of Politics, Wade’s work draws from anthropology, evolutionary biology, and historical analysis to explore how human nature shapes the direction of society—and how policies which ignore human nature risk chaos and even extinction.

Political scientists agree that the roots of politics must lie in human nature, but then assume that human behavior is infinitely flexible. The Origin of Politics shows that limits set by human evolution cannot be ignored without penalty.