The Human Swarm Book Summary - The Human Swarm Book explained in key points

Listen to the Intro

00:00

The Human Swarm summary

Name: The Human Swarm
Rating: 4.3 (78 reviews)
Author: Mark W. Moffett

Mark W. Moffett

How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall

4.3 (78 ratings)

26 mins

Brief summary

The Human Swarm by Mark W. Moffett explores how our innate need to belong drives us to form groups, and how these groups shape our society and culture. With fascinating insights on ants, humans and other animals, this book reveals the power of collective intelligence.

Topics

Anthropology Culture

Table of Contents

The Human Swarm
Summary of 9 key ideas

Audio & text in the Blinkist app

Key idea 1 of 9

What’s in it for me? Discover just how societies shape our world.

Societies are powerful things. We may never travel the full length of our home nations, nor meet more than a tiny minority of our fellow citizens. But we may still feel a powerful connection to society, a sense of pride at the sight of our nation’s flag, and a rush of emotion at the opening notes of the national anthem. Outside of our families, societies are the primary groups to which we pledge loyalty; we’re willing to fight and sometimes even die for them.

In day-to-day life, we give little thought to the societies of which we’re part. But humankind’s organization into societies over thousands of years has profoundly influenced our beliefs and the ways in which we behave. The following blinks explore what societies are, to both animals and humans. They look at the startling similarities we share with ants, and explain how our anonymous lives mark us humans out from most other mammals.

In these blinks you’ll learn

why three-month-old babies display signs of discriminating racially;
how ants work harmoniously and anonymously with each other; and
why immigration sets us humans apart from our chimpanzee relatives.

Knowing your neighbor is a big advantage for most animals, but it also limits how big societies can get.

Ever taken a job as a babysitter? Then you’ve got something in common with meerkats. Meerkats care for infants outside their immediate families, too – and they even go the extra mile while doing it, tidying each other’s burrows and offering delicious insect snacks to the babies in their care.

Just like humans, meerkats live together in societies, where they benefit from mutual cooperation. Many other vertebrates do, too – societies such as those of wolves, or birds like the Florida scrub jay, are based entirely around cooperative child-rearing. Cubs in a wolf pack even help their parents and other adults raise newborns.

Cooperation can also bring powerful benefits when it comes to protection and security. Living in a society means more eyes and ears for spotting rivals and threats, and more paws and claws for fighting back against them. Elephants, for example, work together to safeguard their young by forming a shield to protect them against lions, while horses encircle their foals and kick outward when wolves approach.

So society offers benefits to its members – but these benefits are offered only to that exclusive, bounded group, and it’s obvious to group members when an outsider is in their midst. Vervet monkeys in Africa, for example, can tell not only when individuals are foreign to their group – they can even tell to which tribe the foreigner belongs!

Most animal societies are built around this individual recognition – recognizing and knowing each individual in a tribe in the same way that humans recognize everyone in their office or class. This feature limits the size of most societies; that’s why we don’t see thousand-strong prides of lions roaming the plains, felling herds of wildebeest. Nor will we ever see apes rising up, Planet of the Apes-style; the animals’ brains are too small to recognize all the individuals in such a large group. That’s why ape societies max out at around 200 members.

Humans manage to live in far, far larger societies, because we’ve broken free of the need to recognize each individual member of our own group. To understand how we’ve done this, let’s take a look at a species that resembles us more than we may care to imagine: ants.

Ants live in anonymous societies of huge size and underappreciated sophistication.

In some parts of the world, humans drive on the right-hand side of the road; in others, on the left. But the marauder ants of Asia have found a different solution: on their busy highways, inbound traffic flows down the center of the road, while outbound ants stream down both outside lanes.

We humans may share more genes with chimps. But our monkey relations don’t deal with traffic management, assembly lines, or waste management. Ants, like humans, do.

Ant societies have more in common with our own societies than we might care to imagine.

Think back to the last time you sat in a busy coffee shop or on a bus, or went to a bar for a drink. You might not have realized it, but something remarkable occurred: you were surrounded by unknown members of your species, but nothing bad happened. If a chimp encountered a stranger, let alone a whole café of them, he would have to fight or flee. Only a female chimp could survive such an encounter peaceably, and only then if she were in the mood for sex.

Humans, on the other hand, are able to live relatively peacefully in societies in which they don’t recognize other members personally. So are ants.

Markers are an evolutionary means by which humans can identify a society’s members and outsiders.

In the film Inglourious Basterds, a British spy, in disguise in a German bar, orders three beers. But to do so he raises his middle three fingers instead of the thumb, index finger and middle finger, as a true German would do. He’s instantly revealed to be an outsider, and a huge fight ensues.

Humans have a huge variety of markers that signify our membership in a society and allow us to identify fellow members and outsiders.

Markers are powerful forces, and our recognition and use of them is hardwired.

Consider an equilateral cross, with its arms hooked forward at ninety degrees. This symbol, the swastika, once caused Nazi hearts to swell.

Markers are not just easy ways to identify whether someone belongs. They can also carry powerful meaning. And it appears that we humans are hardwired to use and react to them.

Despite living very different lives from us, hunter-gatherers lived in clearly defined societies.

Earlier in human history, our hunter-gatherer forebears lived lives that, on the face of it, were very different from our own. With no agriculture, they depended on the food that nature provided – with a little help from poison arrows and other basic tools.

Nonetheless, hunter-gatherers all over, from the Inuit in the Arctic to aboriginal people in what is now Australia, lived in clearly defined societies called band societies.

Societies have clear characteristics and believe themselves to be superior to others.

The Jahai hunter-gatherers of Malaysia refer to themselves as “menra.” The Canadian Beaver Indians call themselves “Dane-Zaa,” and the Kusunda people of Nepal say “mihhaq.” Each of these names means the same thing: “real people.” And it’s not just venerable tribes that share this trait. The words “Dutch,” for the people of the Netherlands, and “Deutsch,” for Germans, come from the word in each language for “human.”

If this all sounds a little self-centered, that’s because a key feature of societies is that they have a collective belief in their own superiority.

Human societies are unique in managing to assimilate outsiders successfully in large numbers.

Try to integrate a captive chimp into a new community, and you’re in for a tough time. It’s a hard, bloody task, requiring months of carefully handled introductions and a whole load of fights. Xenophobic chimpanzees only adapt because, having lost their original society, they have no choice.

So it is a remarkable achievement that, despite all our inborn favoring of insiders over outsiders, human societies have become relatively good at accepting and assimilating newcomers – so long as a few conditions are met.

Modern state societies are not permanent, but the need for societies is.

Whatever society you live in, one day it will cease to exist.

Societies have never been permanent, and they never will be. Archaeologist Joyce Marcus has shown that state societies in ancient times had a clear life span of between two and five hundred years. After growing through war and the acquisition of territory and people, they eventually splintered, usually along long-ingrained ethnic or territorial lines.

Want to see all full key ideas from The Human Swarm?

Key ideas in The Human Swarm

More knowledge in less time

Read or listen

Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.

Find your next read

Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.

Shortcasts ^New

We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.

What is The Human Swarm about?

The Human Swarm (2019) is a groundbreaking exploration of human society, from its origins to the huge civilizations found on the planet today. Drawing on psychology, anthropology and biology, it shows how humans have managed to create and maintain societies of a size and complexity unrivaled in the animal kingdom.

Who should read The Human Swarm?

Those interested in how society works
Armchair psychologists who’d like to understand our relations better
People curious about the evolution of human behavior

About the Author

Mark W. Moffett is a scientist and real-life adventurer who was once called the Indiana Jones of entomology – the study of insects. A research associate in the Entomology Department at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History, he has shared his passionate interest in bugs, animals and human behavior on shows like The Colbert Report and Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

Categories with The Human Swarm

Society & Culture

Book summaries like The Human Swarm

Blueprint

Nicholas A. Christakis

The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society

A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator

45 min

4.7

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Intuition or deliberation? Where you can (and can't) trust your brain

The Art of Understanding Others

Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.

22 min

4.5

Awakening Your Ikigai

Ken Mogi

How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day

15 min

4.5

The Power of Myth

Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers

From ancient myths to Han Solo

A Brief History of Humankind

28 min

4.4

Freakonomics

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

21 min

4.3

Man’s Search for Meaning

Viktor Frankl

The harrowing experiences of the author in a concentration camp

Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life

The Modern Denial of Human Nature

32 min

4.5

The Incredible Journey of Plants

Stefano Mancuso

A fascinating account of natural history

An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology

How Napoleon Conquered Europe and Changed the World

34 min

4.6

The Expectation Effect

David Robson

How Your Mindset Can Change Your World

A Critique of Political Economy

19 min

4.4

The Surprising Science of Meetings

Steven G. Rogelberg

How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance

How We Meet and Why It Matters

24 min

4.4

The Power of Neurodiversity

Thomas Armstrong

Unleashing the Advantages of Your Differently Wired Brain

20 min

4.5

Survival of the Friendliest

Brian Hare and Vanessa Wood

Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity

27 min

4.3

Do Breathe

Michael Townsend Williams

Calm Your Mind. Find Focus. Get Stuff Done.

23 min

4.5

The Warren Buffett Way

Robert G. Hagstrom

Investment Strategies of the World's Greatest Investor

18 min

4.5

The Pursuit of Excellence

Ryan Hawk

The Uncommon Behaviors of the World's Most Productive Achievers

22 min

4.7

Thank You for Arguing

Jay Heinrichs

What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion

Reclaiming Life from Work

The Octopus And The Evolution Of Intelligent Life

7 Steps to Release Toxicity and Energize Joy

Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations

An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion, and Propaganda in the Global Media

Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma

24 min

4.8

(Article) Why can't the world's greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness?

Oliver Burkeman

Original article published in The Guardian

5 min

3.6

Passive Income, Aggressive Retirement

Rachel Richards

The Secret to Freedom, Flexibility, and Financial Independence (& How to Get Started!)

The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science

Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World

A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War and the Evolution of Us

21 min

4.2

Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain

Lisa Feldman Barrett

Have Your Understanding of Consciousness, Emotions, and Memory Revolutionized

How Modern Art Came to America

Building Empathy in a Fractured World

25 min

4.5

Good Economics for Hard Times

Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems

The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals

18 min

4.1

Gods of the Upper Air

Charles King

How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century

The secrets of 40 millionaires' wealth, revealed

15 min

4.4

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Thomas Piketty

Groundbreaking Research That Unravels Economic Disparity in Our World Today

The Origins of Our Discontents

The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Observations on the Nature, Theory and Strategy of War and Combat

20 min

4.3

People ❤️ Blinkist

Sven O.

It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.

Thi Viet Quynh N.

Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.

Jonathan A.

Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.

Renee D.

Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.