Wholesale Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World

An “exhilarating” (Irish Times) and “ambitious” (The Guardian) account of the ancient inheritance that made us who we are—and is now driving us to ruin. Why do similar beliefs in ghosts appear across cultures? How might our tendency to imitate one another contribute to the climate catastrophe? And could our deep evolutionary past explain the appeal of strongmen? In 1987 Harvey Whitehouse went to live with an indigenous community deep in the Papua New Guinea rainforest. His experiences there convinced him that, far from being wildly different, humans are fundamentally alike: their beliefs and behaviors are rooted in a set of evolutionary biases that can be found in any society, anywhere. In Inheritance, Whitehouse leads us across twelve millennia and five continents to uncover how these biases—conformism, religiosity, and tribalism—have both shaped and been reshaped by human history. Along the way, he shows that this ancient inheritance holds the key not just to explaining the modern world, but perhaps also to repairing it.