Are there any "laws of nature" that influence the ways in which humans behave and organize themselves? Author Philip Ball shows how much we can understand of human behavior when we cease to try to predict and analyze the behavior of individuals and instead look to the impact of individual decisions -- whether in circumstances of cooperation or conflict -- can have on our laws, institutions and customs. Lively and compelling, Critical Mass is the first book to bring these new ideas together and to show how they fit within the broader historical context of a rational search for better ways to live. | 
