This synthesis of research into the behavior of humans and other social animals ranges horizontally from a congruence of the perspectives of the life sciences, social sciences, and physical sciences and longitudinally from that of the most recent 60 million years, but emphasizing the last 12 thousand years.

From a political science perspective, these essays focus on both individual and small-group political behavior. Schubert’s work draws extensively on contemporary evolutionary theory, biosocial and psychobiological theory, ethology and primatology, behavioral ecology, experimental work in animal behavior, neurobiology, human development, and the philosophy of both life and social sciences. Introducing and concluding the book are essays that discuss the implications of biology and the life sciences for the study of political science. The others center on five topics: political ethology (naturalistic study of human behavior as animal behavior); political evolution; evolutionary theory; evolutionary development (ecological, epigenetic, and ontogenetic); and the evolution of human thinking.