Secret of Our Success

This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains - on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, The Secret of Our Success explores how the evolution of both our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and the origins of human uniqueness.

Joseph Henrich is professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. He also holds the Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition, and Coevolution at the University of British Columbia, where he is a professor in the departments of psychology and economics. He is the coauthor of Why Humans Cooperate and the coeditor of Experimenting with Social Norms.

"Henrich draws on his far-flung ethnographic field studies and the work of colleagues to illustrate the adaptive power of human culture."--The Scientist