The Hands We Shake: A Brief History of Human Cooperation and Controversy

Living and cooperating with people who differ from us is one of the most urgent challenges of society today. Yet, this demand is not new. For hundreds of thousands of years people have been grappling with this same quandy: How do we get along? In this clear-eyed and easy to read assessment, The Hands We Shake gives a brief chronicle of humanity's aptitude for cooperating with one another. Utilizing a wide-ranging variety of stories and thoughts from the past, the narrative moves through the layers of history eventually ending up with our present-day predicament. From the Stone Age to the computer age, this is a fascinating and relevant look at cooperation.The Hands We Shake illuminates the twists and turns, the quirks and peculiarities of humans in their efforts to get along. There remans in the human psyche a certain ease with which we stereotype people who are not 'like us.' This is a point of view that comes to us via the heritage of our evolution. It is also a trait we share with other great apes. In our modern era instead of moving past discord and exclusion, many are reverting back to entanglement in the wilds of tribalism.Whether cooperating on an individual level, a corporate level, a national, or and international level, the greatest prosperity comes as a reward for getting along with one another. There is no doubt this is the road we must take. In our present-day situation, there is an even more urgent need to find ways to cooperate as polarization grips our society.The Hands We Shake addresses the very nature of cooperation, why it has weakened, and how it might be strengthened. Understanding more of the history about the age-old skill of cooperation makes us better citizens as we learn to live more securely in our expanding and complex society.