Audio only
The Origin of Politics
How Evolution and Ideology Shape the Fate of NationsBy Nicholas WadeNarrated by Charles ConstantLength6h 41m
About this audiobook
Societies that ignore social disintegration and collapsing birth rates are putting their future in peril. So why are we ignoring the signs?
?In The Origin Of Politics, Nicholas Wade explains how our political systems compete with a more ancient set of rules for organizing society—those developed by evolution. Modern ideologies are in constant tension with structures inherent in human social behavior, such as the family, the tribe, and male-dominated institutions.
This tension plays out in various ways. Sometimes nature prevails over politics, as in the proposal by Marx and Engels to eliminate the family, the basic unit of society. The founders of the kibbutz movement put this radical idea into practice, only to find that the conflict with human nature was unsustainable. In other cases, culture has successfully modified evolutionary behaviors, replacing polygamy with monogamy and dissolving the bonds of tribalism to make way for modern states.
But the evolutionary framework of human societies is not infinitely flexible. The nation-state, especially in the case of the United States, is prone to disintegration if disruptive ideologies are allowed to undermine the cohesive affinities that hold its disparate cultures together.
The worldwide decline in fertility in most countries except those in Africa signals a severe derangement in the behaviors evolution has devised for ensuring that a population will maintain itself. If the causes of this disruption cannot be understood and reversed, human societies will embark on an unsought path to extinction.
Other fraught issues in which human biology and politics conflict include the innate specializations of the sexes, the stratification of society by ability, and the mismatch between the inequalities of wealth-creating societies and the egalitarian ethic inherited from our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
We live in an iridescent bubble, the intoxicating richness of modern culture. Shielded from the natural world, we have lost our awareness of the evolutionary forces that still guide our motivations and shape the foundations of our societies. The Origin of Politics explores the risks of underestimating evolution’s fundamental role in human affairs.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.9 (84)
Includes Goodreads
GenrePolitics and Government, Science and Nature, History
Length6 hrs 41 mins
Narrated byCharles Constant
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateSep 9, 2025
LanguageEnglish
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
RiggedMollie Hemingway12h 48m4.6 (4.2K)$23 · $0.00
SledgehammerDavid Friedman8h 21m4.7 (589)$26 · $0.00
Citizenship in a Republic (Annotated)Theodore Roosevelt2h 44m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
UnthinkableJamie Raskin15h 8m4.5 (9.3K)$8 · $0.00
My Fourth Time, We DrownedSally Hayden13h 59m4.6 (2.9K)$23 · $0.00
A Revolution of Common SenseScott Jennings9h 29m4.6 (528)$29 · $0.00
Statement From the Dock at the Rivonia TrialNelson Mandela2h 18m4.6 (1.3K)$1 · $0.00
Lessons from the EdgeMarie Yovanovitch17h 11m4.5 (5.9K)$40 · $0.00
To Rescue the American SpiritBret Baier10h 12m4.5 (2.7K)$8 · $0.00
StonewalledSharyl Attkisson15h 19m4.5 (4.3K)$33 · $0.00
The World According to Orwell: 1984 & Animal FarmGeorge Orwell15h 42m4.6 (1.1K)$1 · $0.00
Basic EconomicsThomas Sowell18h 32m4.5 (29.3K)$28 · $0.00
To Rescue the RepublicBret Baier, Catherine Whitney11h 42m4.5 (8.6K)$29 · $0.00
Modern WarriorsPete Hegseth7h 10m4.5 (4.7K)$24 · $0.00
Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (Annotated)Marcus Mosiah Garvey4h 42m4.5 (1.7K)$1.99 · $0.00
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
The Story of BirdsSteve Brusatte11h 49m4.6 (401)$29 · $0.00
Pastoral SongJames Rebanks8h 35m4.5 (12K)$26 · $0.00
How Stella Learned to TalkChristina Hunger7h4.5 (10.9K)$24 · $0.00
Craig & FredCraig Grossi8h 6m4.5 (9.6K)$26 · $0.00
Celebrating BirdsNatalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez6h 47m4.6 (330)$24 · $0.00
Saving JemimaJulie Zickefoose4h 59m4.5 (749)$20 · $0.00
Will's Red CoatTom Ryan8h 23m4.5 (2.3K)$26 · $0.00
Of Time and TurtlesSy Montgomery10h 34m4.5 (5K)$29 · $0.00
Zen and the Art of Saving the PlanetThich Nhat Hanh9h 20m4.5 (3.9K)$29 · $0.00
Bottle of LiesKatherine Eban14h 25m4.4 (12K)$33 · $0.00
IngrainedCallum Robinson8h 10m4.5 (1.1K)$26 · $0.00
The Lion Tracker's Guide To LifeBoyd Varty3h 1m4.4 (4.8K)$18 · $0.00
Born for LoveBruce D. Perry, Maia Szalavitz11h 42m4.4 (4K)$29 · $0.00
The Mountains of California (With Original Drawings & Photographs) (Annotated)John Muir11h 35m4.5 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
The New GuysMeredith Bagby16h 50m4.4 (1.2K)$40 · $0.00
Blue PasturesMary Oliver3h 23m4.4 (3.8K)$18 · $0.00
The Rise and Reign of the MammalsSteve Brusatte13h 26m4.4 (11.1K)$33 · $0.00
VaccinatedPaul A. Offit8h 30m4.4 (3.7K)$26 · $0.00
The Light EatersZoë Schlanger10h 57m4.4 (22.8K)$29 · $0.00
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Ghosts of HiroshimaCharles Pellegrino8h 59m4.5 (877)$23
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
Where the Birds Never SingJack Sacco10h 31m4.6 (3.8K)$29 · $0.00
You may also like
The Secret History of FoodMatt Siegel5h 30m3.8 (6K)$7 · $0.00
Tobacco RoadErskine Caldwell5h 23m3.8 (19.4K)$14
The Social LeapWilliam von Hippel8h 37m4.2 (3.6K)$26 · $0.00
Everyday SurvivalLaurence Gonzales9h 19m3.8 (1.5K)$26 · $0.00
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to SexCharles Darwin28h 1m4.1 (6.4K)$1 · $0.00
The Red QueenMatt Ridley12h 52m4.2 (18.7K)$33 · $0.00
An Essay on the Principle of PopulationThomas Malthus6h 4m3.7 (3.4K)$1.20 · $0.00
IymonShayx Muhammad Sodiq Muhammad Yusuf12h 31m4.8 (1.2K)$18 · $0.00
Animals Make Us HumanTemple Grandin, Catherine Johnson11h 37m4.2 (8.3K)$29 · $0.00
On the SoulAristotle3h 26m4.2 (8.1K)$1.80 · $0.00
Business Englisch lernen Audio – Work LifeMelita Cameron-Wood52m$17
Amazing AnimalsScientific American5h 57m$17
Savage Seas – 3 Classic Narratives of Survival and MadnessHerman Melville, Stephen Crane, Joseph Conrad36h 45m$2
Wasps, Social and SolitaryE. G. Peckham, George W. Peckham6h 56m4.3 (18)$1 · $0.00
Squirrels and Other Fur-BearersJohn Burroughs3h 26m4.1 (71)$2 · $0.00
On HuntingLt. Col. Dave Grossman, Linda K. Miller, Keith A. Cunningham11h 18m4.2 (31)$10 · $0.00
In Nesting TimeOlive Thorne Miller4h 48m$2 · $0.00
Liverpool (Annotated)Dixon Scott3h 18m$1.99 · $0.00
Feminism and Sex-ExtinctionArabella Kenealy12h 18m$1 · $0.00
Area Handbook for AlbaniaWilliam Giloane, Eston T. White, James M. Moore, Sarah Jane Elpern, Eugene K. Keefe, Stephen Peters5h 30m$2 · $0.00