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?

Foreword xi Acknowledgments xv Trust and Panic: Introduction to the Revised Edition 1 Part I: Tunnel Vision 15 Chapter 1: Who's in Charge? 17 Prologue to Part II 33 Part II: From Murderous Apes to Honorary Friends: How Is Human Cooperation Possible? 35 Chapter 2: Man and the Risks of Nature 37 Chapter 3: Our Violent Past 55 Chapter 4: How Have We Tamed Our Violent Instincts? 65 Chapter 5: How Did the Social Emotions Evolve? 80 Chapter 6: Money and Human Relationships 91 Chapter 7: Honor among Thieves: Hoarding and Stealing 106 Chapter 8: Honor among Bankers? What Caused the Financial Crisis? 116 Chapter 9: Professionalism and Fulfillment in Work and War 134 Epilogue to Parts I and II 147 Prologue to Part III 151 Part III: Unintended Consequences: From Family Bands to Industrial Cities 155 Chapter 10: The City, from Ancient Athens to Modern Manhattan 157 Chapter 11: Water: Commodity or Social Institution? 172 Chapter 12: Prices for Everything? 186 Chapter 13: Families and Firms 204 Chapter 14: Knowledge and Symbolism 226 Chapter 15: Exclusion: Unemployment, Poverty, and Illness 244 Epilogue to Part III 263 Prologue to Part IV 265 Part IV: Collective Action: From Belligerent States to a Marketplace of Nations 269 Chapter 16: States and Empires 271 Chapter 17: Globalization and Political Action 288 Chapter 18: Conclusion: How Fragile Is the Great Experiment? 302 Notes 317 References 343 Index 365