Evopolitical Readings
Science
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859)
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871)
The big daddy who started it all. The Descent of Man in particular remains, remarkably enough, the best exploration of human evolution and its implications for human nature and societies. Lucidly synthetic and even downright poetic in places.
Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate (2002)
Harvard University professor Steven Pinker’s classic work on the evolutionary foundations of human nature and psychology. Well-written, insightful, informed by a broad and deep engagement with the humanities (often lacking in scientific works), The Blank Slate is an excellent primer on its topic and the skewed politics of academia.
Robert Plomin, Blueprint (2018)
In Blueprint, Robert Plomin, one of the top behavioral geneticists in the world, provides a survey of his career, of the techniques of his field (twin studies, statistics, genome analysis), and especially of their insights into human nature, namely the genetic factors in personality and intelligence differences. A must-read for anyone interested in the roots of individual differences. tl/dr see his summary articles on intelligence and replicated findings in behavioral genetics.
Nicholas Wade, A Troublesome Inheritance (2014)
Nicholas Wade, formerly the science writer of the New York Times, collects and synthesizes the insights from studies in population genetics, showing how geography and culture have driven somewhat divergent evolutionary paths (for example, traditional Judaism’s emphasis on endogamy has led Ashkenazi Jews to have a distinct genetic profile with higher risk for certain diseases, while the caste system in India has similarly led to genetic differences between castes). The gene-culture coevolution of the human race remains an underexplored topic, thought one crucial to the future of our species.
Jennifer Doudna and Samuel Sternberg, A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution (2017)
George Church and Ed Regis, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves (2012)
Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution (2009)
Modern Philosophy
Francis Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002)
One of the three classic statements againt human genetic enhancement (alongside Michael Sandel and Jürgen Habermas). All of Fukuyama’s books are worth reading, whatever one thinks of their conclusions. Reviewed here.
Jonathan Anomaly, Creating Future People (2020)
This short book is the best I have read on the potentialities and dilemmas of using emerging reprogenetic technologies, such as gene editing and embryo selection, for human enhancement. Anomaly explores the risks and opportunities of cognitive, moral, esthetic, and immune-system enhancement with the clarity and rigor of a practical philosopher.
Filipe Nobre Faria, The Evolutionary Limits of Liberalism (2019)
Classics
Classics tend to present great insights into human nature and can be surprisingly rich in their evolutionary implications, particularly given any prescriptions for reproduction, demographics, and in-group identity
Aristotle, Politics (~320 BC)
“Man is by nature a political animal.” This foundational work of Western political science remains eminently readable. You get a sense of how politics worked among the diverse city-states of the ancient Greek world—democracies, oligarchies, and autocracies—with continuing relevance for their modern equivalents. Aristotle also provides a remarkably biological and communitarian vision of citizenship, grounded in civic participation and the rule of law, aimed towards individual excellence and collective flourishing.
Hamilton, Adams, and Jay, The Federalist Papers (1787-1788)
These celebrated essays defending and explaining the United States Constitution remain a remarkable set of arguments regarding how to form a functional and free republic given a specific (arguably very realistic) view of human nature and the facts of ancient and modern history they were then known.
Herodotus, Histories (~430 BC)
Herodotus’ epic tour of the ancient Mediterranean includes not only descriptions of diverse nations and the wars between Greece and Persia, but a remarkable vision of the dynamics of world-history driven by interplay and conflict between nations, states, and cultures (“Custom is king of all.”), in complex interaction with geography. Arguably a precocious vision of world-history as gene-culture coevolution through inter-group competition.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (180 AD)
The Roman emperor’s spiritual diary provides a remarkable of example of how to derive a powerful ethos of self-discipline, compassionate dialogue, gratitude, detachment, and acceptance from a particular view of human nature.
The Bible
Riven with evolutionary implications almost from start to finish.
François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims (1665-1693)
La Rochefoucauld’s classic Maxims are the original, ruthless statement of the degree to which ego, vanity, and self-love drive human behavior, long before evolutionary psychologists came along. The original deconstructor of “virtue signaling.” (The Oxford World Classics edition has face-to-face original French and English translation, a stimulating and informative introduction, and detailed endnotes.)
Biopolitical / Evolutionary History
Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms (2007)
Gregory Clark, The Son Also Rises (2014)
Joseph Henrich, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous (2020)
Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, Nazism (1988-2001)
This excellent series reveals the day-to-day functioning of government in Nazi Germany by reproducing diverse primary sources (especially government documents) alongside highly enlightening historical context and analysis. These books help understand why the Third Reich was so compelling for millions of Germans, why it proved such a formidable foe, and why it committed evil acts on such a vast scale.