Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- How we approach the problem -- Adaptation, individual and social -- Life's common ancestry, and its origin -- Diversification -- Integrating diversity into community: interdependence and mutualism -- Heredity, natural selection, and evolution -- Organizing genes for adaptive evolution -- The processes of evolution -- The last transition: how thought and language evolved -- What have we learned, and what is still unknown?

"A beautifully written exploration of how cooperation shaped life on earth, from its single-celled beginnings to complex human society.
Leigh explores the results of billions of years of evolution at work. Leigh, who has spent five decades on Panama's Barro Colorado island reflecting on the organization of various amazingly diverse tropical eco-systems, now shows how selection of "selfish genes" gives rise to complex modes of cooperation and interdependence." -- Front flap of dust-jacket.