A Brief Natural History of Civilization: Why a Balance Between Cooperation & Competition Is Vital to Humanity

Front matter
	Half title
	Title page
	Copyright
	Contents
	Preface
	Acknowledgments
Introduction: Why Natural History?
PART I - Life: Where We Came From
	1. Cooperative Life
		The Ingredients for Life
		Competition… and Cooperation
		Gaia and Autopoiesis
		Salt Marshes: A Case Study in Mutualisms and Self-Organization
		Microbes and Humanity
	2. Life in the Food Chain
		Making Humans
		Learning to Speak
		Filling the Planet
		Partners and Prey
	3. Taming Nature
		From Hunting Camps to Land Management
		Coevolution and Domestication
		Bread, Beer, and Olives
		Becoming Agricultural
		Why a Revolution Anyway?
PART II - Civilization: Who We Are
	4. The Triumph and Curse of Civilization
		The Evolution of Civilization
		Religion and Göbekli Tepe
		At What Cost?
	5. Resource Exploitation
		Arms Races
		Snails, Sailing, and Slaves
		Overland Trade
		Roman Roads
		The Age of Exploration
	6. Famine and Disease
		Too Little Food
		Life against Life
		Elegantly Evolved Problems
		Playing Defense
	7. Domination versus Cooperation
		The Rules of Social Dominance
		The Human Age
		Family and God
		The Power of Information
PART III - Fate: Where We Are Going
	8. Our Ethnocentric, Entheogenic Universe
		Soma and the Meaning of Life
		Myths in Parallel and in Conflict
		Medicines and Divine Mushrooms
		More Mushrooms and Myths
	9. Preserving Food and Improving Health
		Pirating Plants
		The First Pharmacies
		The First Refrigerators
		The Story of Salt
		Frozen
	10. Civilization on Fire
		Burning the Forests
		The First Fossil Fuel
		The Oceanic Energy Cartel
		Digging Deeper: Coal
		Oil and What’s Next
	11. Unnatural Nature
		A History of Collapse
		Avoiding Alternate States by Valuing Current Ecosystems
		Changing Global Systems
		Evolution and Information
Epilogue: The Natural History of Civilizations
	The Problem of Inertia
	Comparing Predators—and Planets
Notes
	Introduction
	Chapter One. Cooperative Life
	Chapter Two. Life in the Food Chain
	Chapter Three. Taming Nature
	Chapter Four. The Triumph and Curse of Civilization
	Chapter Five. Resource Exploitation
	Chapter Six. Famine and Disease
	Chapter Seven. Domination versus Cooperation
	Chapter Eight. Our Ethnocentric, Entheogenic Universe
	Chapter Nine. Preserving Food and Improving Health
	Chapter Ten. Civilization on Fire
	Chapter Eleven. Unnatural Nature
	Epilogue
Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Index