Richard Dawkins once wrote, "Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish." Francis Collins, former Director of the Human Genome Project, believed that our selfless moral feelings conflict with the evolutionary urge to preserve our DNA, and could only have come to pass as a result of divine intervention. They were both wrong.

In The Pursuit of Kindness, Éamonn Toland provides compelling evidence from biology, psychology, history and archaeology that, for 95 percent of the time that humans have walked the earth, survival of the fittest for our species has meant survival of the kindest. In fascinating, clearly written and entertaining prose, he argues that collaboration is more deeply engrained than competition, and that it is only by working together that human beings can prosper. In an increasingly polarised world, The Pursuit of Kindness offers an optimistic view of human development; it is essential reading for all those interested in the survival of the human species.