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Acknowledgments The naturalist Edward O. Wilson, one of the most influential thinkers of our time, has found himself at the center of fiery controversies related to the evolution of human social behavior (discussed in chapter 10). An elegant and graceful man, he has written about those disputes and those who have most strongly opposed him—“Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.” When it comes to this book, I count myself even luckier than Wilson, in that I’ve had the good fortune of brilliant friends, ones who have been enormously helpful and generous with their time in vetting the chapters of this book. They’ve flagged my errors of omission and commission and my under-, over-, and misinterpretations, and tactfully let me know areas where I was twenty years out of date in my knowledge, or just plain woefully wrong. This book has benefited enormously from their collegial kindness, and I thank them all deeply (while taking credit for any errors remaining). They are: Ara Norenzayan, University of British Columbia, Canada Carsten de Dreu, Leiden University/University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Daniel Weinberger, Johns Hopkins University David Barash, University of Washington David Moore, Pitzer College and Claremont Graduate University Douglas Fry, University of Alabama at Birmingham Gerd Kempermann, Dresden University of Technology, Germany James Gross, Stanford University James Rilling, Emory University Jeanne Tsai, Stanford University John Crabbe, Oregon Health and Science University John Jost, New York University John Wingfield, University of California at Davis Joshua Greene, Harvard University Kenneth Kendler, Virginia Commonwealth University Lawrence Steinberg, Temple University Owen Jones, Vanderbilt University Paul Whalen, Dartmouth College Randy Nelson, Ohio State University Robert Seyfarth, University of Pennsylvania Sarah Hrdy, University of California at Davis Stephen Manuck, University of Pittsburgh Steven Cole, University of California at Los Angeles Susan Fiske, Princeton University I have also had the fortune to interact with the spectacular students at Stanford University, and a number of them have directly contributed to this book. This has taken the form of their being library assistants, helping out with specific topics, or being members of a small seminar that I taught a few times that focused on the content of this book. They’ve been wonderful to work with and learn from. They are: Adam Widman, Alexander Morgan, Ali Maggioncalda, Alice Spurgin, Allison Waters, Anna Chan, Arielle Lasky, Ben Wyler, Bethany Michel, Bilal Mahmood, Carl Cummings, Catherine Le, Christopher Schulze, Davie Yoon, Dawn Maxey, Dylan Alegria, Elena Bridgers, Elizabeth Levey, Ellen Edenberg, Ellora Karmarkar, Erik Lehnert, Ethan Lipka, Felicity Grisham, Gabe Ben-Dor, Gene Lowry, George Capps, Helen McLendon, Helen Shen, Jeffrey Woods, Jonathan Lu, Kaitlin Greene, Katharine Tomalty, Katrina Hui, Kian Eftekhari, Kirsten Hornbeak, Lara Rangel, Lauren Finzer, Lindsay Louie, Lisa Diver, Maisy Samuelson, Morgan Freret, Nick Hollon, Patrick Wong, Pilar Abascal, Robert Schafer, Sam Bremmer, Sandy Kory, Scott Huckaby, Sean Bruich, Sonia Singh, Stacie Nishimoto, Tom McFadden, Vineet Singhal, Will Peterson, Wyatt Hong, Yun Chu. I also thank Lisa Pereira of Stanford University, Christopher Richards of Penguin Books, Thea Traff of the New Yorker, and Ethan Lipka of the Nueva School for helping tremendously in getting this book into shape during the final stretch. Thanks to Kevin Berger for thinking of the title to chapter 6. Warm, heartfelt thanks to Katinka Matson and Steven Barclay, my publishing and speaking agents, sounding boards, and friends—you both know how long and difficult the gestation of this book was, and thank you for sticking with me throughout. I thank Scott Moyers of Penguin with huge gratitude—you have been a dream of an editor. And I apologize to anyone whose support I have missed noting here, as I rush frantically to meet the deadline for this book. . . . Finally, above all else, I thank and madly love those who have given the most support, and who have withstood the most interruptions of board games, while I worked on the book—my family.