The Company of Strangers : : A Natural History of Economic Life - Revised Edition / / Paul Seabright.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Seabright, Paul,
• MitwirkendeR: Dennett, Daniel C.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2010]; ©2010
• Year of Publication: 2010
• Edition: Revised edition with a New foreword by Daniel C. Dennett
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (400 p.)

The Company of Strangers shows us the remarkable strangeness, and fragility, of our everyday lives. This completely revised and updated edition includes a new chapter analyzing how the rise and fall of social trust explain the unsustainable boom in the global economy over the past decade and the financial crisis that succeeded it. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, history, psychology, and literature, Paul Seabright explores how our evolved ability of abstract reasoning has allowed institutions like money, markets, cities, and the banking system to provide the foundations of social trust that we need in our everyday lives. Even the simple acts of buying food and clothing depend on an astonishing web of interaction that spans the globe. How did humans develop the ability to trust total strangers with providing our most basic needs?

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Trust and Panic: Introduction to the Revised Edition -- PART I. Tunnel Vision -- CHAPTER 1. Who's in Charge? -- Prologue to Part II -- PART II. From Murderous Apes to Honorary Friends: How Is Human Cooperation Possible? -- CHAPTER 2. Man and the Risks of Nature -- CHAPTER 3. Our Violent Past -- CHAPTER 4. How Have We Tamed Our Violent Instincts? -- CHAPTER 5. How Did the Social Emotions Evolve? -- CHAPTER 6. Money and Human Relationships -- CHAPTER 7. Honor among Thieves: Hoarding and Stealing -- CHAPTER 8. Honor among Bankers? What Caused the Financial Crisis? -- CHAPTER 9. Professionalism and Fulfillment in Work and War -- Epilogue to Parts I and II -- Prologue to Part III -- PART III. Unintended Consequences: From Family Bands to Industrial Cities -- CHAPTER 10. The City, from Ancient Athens to Modern Manhattan -- CHAPTER 11. Water: Commodity or Social Institution? -- CHAPTER 12. Prices for Everything? -- CHAPTER 13. Families and Firms -- CHAPTER 14. Knowledge and Symbolism -- CHAPTER 15. Exclusion: Unemployment, Poverty, and Illness -- Epilogue to Part III -- Prologue to Part IV -- PART IV. Collective Action: From Belligerent States to a Marketplace of Nations -- CHAPTER 16. States and Empires -- CHAPTER 17. Globalization and Political Action -- CHAPTER 18. Conclusion: How Fragile Is the Great Experiment? -- Notes -- References -- Index