Want to know what books Bruce Schneier recommends? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Bruce Schneier's favorite book recommendations of all time. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.
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The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Steven Pinker
4.3
Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history. Exploding myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly enlightened world.
Steven Pinker’s explanation as to why, despite the selection pressures for murderousness in our evolutionary past, violence has declined in so many cultures around the world. It’s a fantastic book, and I recommend that everyone read it. [source]
Yong succeeds in his intention to give us a 'grander view of life' and does so without falling prey to grand, unifying explanations that are far too simplistic. He presents our inner ecosystems in all their wondrous messiness and complexity. And he offers realistic optimism that our growing knowledge of the human microbiome will lead to great new opportunities for enhancing our health. [source]
When you finish this book, which takes a long time, you conclude that the world is in a much, much better place than it has been in the past. [source]
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The Penguin and the Leviathan: The Triumph of Cooperation Over Self-Interest
Yochai Benkler
4.0
What do Wikipedia, Zip Car's business model, Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and a small group of lobster fishermen have in common? They all show the power and promise of human cooperation in transforming our businesses, our government, and our society at large. Because today, when the costs of collaborating are lower than ever before, there are no limits to what we can achieve by working together.
For centuries, we as a society have operated according to a very unflattering view of human nature: that, humans are universally and inherently selfish creatures. As a result, our most deeply entrenched social structures - our top-down business models, our punitive legal systems, our market-based approaches to everything from education reform to environmental regulation - have been built on the premise that humans are driven only by self interest, programmed to respond only to the invisible hand of the free markets or the iron fist of a controlling government.
In the last decade, however, this fallacy has finally begun to unravel, as hundreds of studies conducted across dozens of cultures have found that most people will act far more cooperatively than previously believed. Here, Harvard University Professor Yochai Benkler draws on cutting-edge findings from neuroscience, economics, sociology, evolutionary biology, political science, and a wealth of real world examples to debunk this long-held myth and reveal how we can harness the power of human cooperation to improve business processes, design smarter technology, reform our economic systems, maximize volunteer contributions to science, reduce crime, improve the efficacy of civic movements, and more.
For example, he describes how:
- By building on countless voluntary contributions, open-source software communities have developed some of the most important infrastructure on which the World Wide Web runs - Experiments with pay-as-you-wish pricing in the music industry reveal that fans will voluntarily pay far more for their favorite music than economic models would ever predic - Many self-regulating communities, from the lobster fishermen of Maine to farmers in Spain, live within self-regulating system for sharing and allocating communal resources - Despite recent setbacks, Toyota's collaborative shop-floor, supply chain, and management structure contributed to its meteoric rise above its American counterparts for over a quarter century. - Police precincts across the nation have managed to reduce crime in tough neighborhoods through collaborative, trust-based, community partnerships.
A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics of cooperation in 21st century life, The Penguin and the Leviathan not only challenges so many of the ways in which we live and work, it forces us to rethink our entire view of human nature.
Benkler challenges the pervasive economic view that people are inherently selfish creatures, and shows that actually we are naturally cooperative. [source]
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Benkler looks at research in neuroscience, biology, sociology and computer science to show how we can encourage self-organised cooperative behaviour. [source]
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The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life
Robert Trivers
3.7
Whether it’s in a cockpit at takeoff or the planning of an offensive war, a romantic relationship or a dispute at the office, there are many opportunities to lie and self-deceive—but deceit and self-deception carry the costs of being alienated from reality and can lead to disaster. So why does deception play such a prominent role in our everyday lives? In short, why do we deceive?
In his bold new work, prominent biological theorist Robert Trivers unflinchingly argues that self-deception evolved in the service of deceit—the better to fool others. We do it for biological reasons—in order to help us survive and procreate. From viruses mimicking host behavior to humans misremembering (sometimes intentionally) the details of a quarrel, science has proven that the deceptive one can always outwit the masses. But we undertake this deception at our own peril.
Trivers has written an ambitious investigation into the evolutionary logic of lying and the costs of leaving it unchecked.
The Folly of Fools, by the biologist Robert Trivers. Trivers has studied self-deception in humans, and asks how it evolved to be so pervasive. Humans are masters at self-deception. We regularly deceive ourselves in a variety of different circumstances. But why? How is it possible for self-deception – perceiving reality to be different than it really is – to have survival value? Why is it that genetic tendencies for self-deception are likely to propagate to the next generation? [source]
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The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill
David M. Buss
4.1
Though we may like to believe that murderers are pathological misfits and hardened criminals, the vast majority of murders are committed by people who, until the day they kill, would seem to be perfectly normal. The Murderer Next Door is a riveting look into the dark underworld of the human psyche, an exploration of when and why we kill and what might push any one of us over the edge. A leader in the innovative field of evolutionary psychology, David Buss conducted an unprecedented set of studies investigating the underlying motives and circumstances of murders, from the bizarre outlier cases of serial killers to those of the friendly next-door neighbor who one day kills his wife.
Reporting on findings that are often startling and counter-intuitive, he puts forth a bold new general theory of homicide, arguing that the human psyche has evolved specialized adaptations whose function is to kill. Taking readers through the surprising twists and turns of the evolutionary logic of murder, he explains exactly when each of us is most at risk, both of being murdered and of becoming a murderer.
Featuring gripping storytelling about specific murder cases, The Murderer Next Door will be necessary reading for those fascinated by books on profiling, lovers of true crime and murder mysteries, and readers intrigued by the inner workings of the human mind.
David M Buss is a psychologist, and he writes well about the natural murderousness of our species. There’s a lot of data to support natural human murderousness, and not just murder rates in modern societies. Anthropological evidence indicates that between 15% and 25% of prehistoric males died in warfare. [source]
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Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality
Patricia S. Churchland
4.1
What is morality? Where does it come from? And why do most of us heed its call most of the time? In Braintrust, neurophilosophy pioneer Patricia Churchland argues that morality originates in the biology of the brain. She describes the "neurobiological platform of bonding" that, modified by evolutionary pressures and cultural values, has led to human styles of moral behavior. The result is a provocative genealogy of morals that asks us to reevaluate the priority given to religion, absolute rules, and pure reason in accounting for the basis of morality. Moral values, Churchland argues, are rooted in family values displayed by all mammals--the caring for offspring. The evolved structure, processes, and chemistry of the brain incline humans to strive not only for self-preservation but for the well-being of allied selves--first offspring, then mates, kin, and so on, in wider and wider "caring" circles. Separation and exclusion cause pain, and the company of loved ones causes pleasure; responding to feelings of social pain and pleasure, brains adjust their circuitry to local customs. In this way, caring is apportioned, conscience molded, and moral intuitions instilled. A key part of the story is oxytocin, an ancient body-and-brain molecule that, by decreasing the stress response, allows humans to develop the trust in one another necessary for the development of close-knit ties, social institutions, and morality. A major new account of what really makes us moral, Braintrust challenges us to reconsider the origins of some of our most cherished values.
This book is about the neuroscience of morality. It was published in 2011. This is a brand new field of science, and new discoveries are happening all the time. Morality is the most basic of societal pressures, and Churchland explains how it works. [source]
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