“Mr. Ridley’s best and most important work to date…there is something profoundly democratic and egalitarian—even anti-elitist—in this bottom-up approach: Everyone can have a role in bringing about change.” —Wall Street Journal
The New York Times bestselling author of The Rational Optimist and Genome returns with a fascinating argument for evolution that definitively dispels a dangerous, widespread myth: that we can command and control our world
Human society evolves. Change in technology, language, morality, and society is incremental, inexorable, gradual, and spontaneous. It follows a narrative, going from one stage to the next, and it largely happens by trial and error—a version of natural selection. Much of the human world is the result of human action but not of human design: it emerges from the interactions of millions, not from the plans of a few.
Drawing on fascinating evidence from science, economics, history, politics, and philosophy, Matt Ridley demolishes conventional assumptions that the great events and trends of our day are dictated by those on high. On the contrary, our most important achievements develop from the bottom up. The Industrial Revolution, cell phones, the rise of Asia, and the Internet were never planned; they happened. Languages emerged and evolved by a form of natural selection, as did common law. Torture, racism, slavery, and pedophilia—all once widely regarded as acceptable—are now seen as immoral despite the decline of religion in recent decades.
In this wide-ranging, erudite book, Ridley brilliantly makes the case for evolution, rather than design, as the force that has shaped much of our culture, our technology, our minds, and that even now is shaping our future.
This ambitious history of ideas uncovers the evolutionary story behind human society:
- Spontaneous Order: A groundbreaking argument that the human world is the result of human action, but not of human design—a concept that changes how we see everything.
- The Evolution of Morality: A fascinating look at how our ideas of right and wrong were not handed down from on high but emerged from social interaction, just like language and common law.
- Cultural Evolution: A wide-ranging exploration drawing on science, economics, and philosophy to show how society changes incrementally and inexorably from the ground up.
- Bottom-Up Technology: The surprising history of our most important achievements, from the Industrial Revolution to the Internet, revealing how they were never planned—they just happened.