How Humans Cooperate: Confronting the Challenges of Collective Action

In How Humans Cooperate, Richard E. Blanton and Lane F. Fargher take a new approach to investigating human cooperation, developed from the vantage point of an "anthropological imagination." Drawing on the discipline’s broad and holistic understanding of humans in biological, social, and cultural dimensions and across a wide range of temporal and cultural variation, the authors unite psychological and institutional approaches by demonstrating the interplay of institution building and cognitive abilities of the human brain.

Blanton and Fargher develop an approach that is strongly empirical, historically deep, and more synthetic than other research designs, using findings from fields as diverse as neurobiology, primatology, ethnography, history, art history, and archaeology. While much current research on collective action pertains to local-scale cooperation, How Humans Cooperate puts existing theories to the test at larger scales in markets, states, and cities throughout the Old and New Worlds.

This innovative book extends collective action theory beyond Western history and into a broadly cross-cultural dimension, places cooperation in the context of large and complex human societies, and demonstrates the interplay of collective action and aspects of human cognitive ability. By extending the scope and content of collective action theory, the authors find a fruitful new path to understanding human cooperation.

Richard E. Blanton is professor of anthropology at Purdue University. A recognized authority on the pre-Hispanic cultures of Mesoamerica, he is past president of the Society for Economic Anthropology and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has made significant contributions to the theoretical and comparative study of early states, cities, and economies.

Lane F. Fargher is investigator in the Department of Human Ecology, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN—Unidad Mérida, Yucatán, México and codirector of the Tlaxcallan Archaeological Project (in Tlaxcala, Mexico). A Mesoamerican archaeologist and cross-cultural researcher, he is interested in the role of cooperation and collective action in markets, ancient cities, landscapes, and households.