Our Political Nature

""[The] best book I’ve read on [this topic].”

—Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, monthly columnist for Scientific American, Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, and author of The Moral Arc and Heavens on Earth

“Tuschman clearly makes a unique and important contribution to the field...[in] this immensely engaging book.”

—Political Science Quarterly

“Tuschman’s book attempts a feat that those of us monitoring the emerging science of politics have long been waiting for—explaining the now well-documented psychological, biological, and genetic differences between liberals and conservatives with reference to human evolution and the differential strategies of mate choice and resource allocation that have been forced on us by the pressures of surviving and reproducing on a quite dangerous planet. . . . If he’s right, a dramatic new window opens on who we are and why we behave as we do.”

—Washington Monthly

“Our Political Nature shows us that there are evolutionary underpinnings to our political attitudes, and that being liberal or conservative may reflect much deeper tendencies than we are inclined to think. Important reading for anyone trying to understand the sources of our present-day political world." 

—Francis Fukuyama, New York Times-bestselling author of The Origins of Political Order

“At a time when unexpected political turmoil and economic crashes have exposed how feeble is our understanding of the forces that drive these crises, Our Political Nature provides a welcome respite from the intellectual confusion now reigning. A fascinating perspective on the deepest roots of the clashes that are changing our world.”

—Moisés Naím, Distinguished Fellow, Carnegie Endowment, and author of The End of Power

“In a remarkable interdisciplinary tour de force, evolutionary anthropologist Avi Tuschman integrates findings from social psychology, genetics, and neuroscience to provide a rich understanding of the polarization in politics throughout history, and of man’s inhumanity to man. In Our Political Nature he makes clear that be it vote choice or the decision to go to war, our politics are the product of the passions that drive us, which are deeply rooted in humanity’s evolutionary origins.”

--Jerrold M. Post, MD, Director, Political Psychology Program at George Washington University, and author of Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World