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Nothing prevents us from describing and explaining human communities as accurately and as successfully as everything else in the world, using scientific tools. So argues evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer in this groundbreaking book. Comparing the latest achievements in evolutionary biology, psychology, genetics, economics and other scientific disciplines, the author presents a new look at the structure of human societies. Boyer convincingly proves how significant the role of cognitive processes is in how people build hierarchies, family and gender norms, how intergroup conflicts and ethnic stereotypes arise. His focus is on a fundamental question: how do human abilities and predispositions developed in the course of evolution explain how we live in society? And why is data from the natural sciences critical to understanding historical events and social processes?