The modern world is dominated by ideas that are threatening to kill us: that life is one long battle from conception to grave; that all creatures, including human beings, are driven by their selfish DNA; that the universe is just stuff, for us to use at will.

These ideas are seen as emerging from science and hard-nosed philosophy, and become self-fulfilling. They have led us to create a world in perpetual strife,that is unjust and in many ways precarious.

This remarkable book by an experienced author and thinker argues there's another way of looking at the world that is just as rooted in modern science, and yet says precisely the opposite: that life is in fact cooperative; all creatures, including human beings, are basically nice; that there's more to the 'stuff' of the world than meets the eye.

This book is both a powerful call to rethink our assumptions, and a message of hope for those who believe we're doomed to self-destruction.