Moalem takes a unique and optimistic approach towards investigating the purpose of disease as a way to really understand its role in evolution. The book is packed with insightful anecdotes and leaves the reader less alarmed by disease, and instead with a deeper understanding of its purpose. Most remarkable, the book takes the reader along a journey that connects us to our ancestors.

A crash course in modern biological thought. James Lovelock on Gaia, Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan on symbiosis in the cell, Robert Axelrod and William Hamilton on the evolution of cooperation, E.O. Wilson on sociobiology and Richard Dawkins on selfish genes and memes. It is a heady mix that covers the spectrum from holism to reductionism.

How the human species changed, within a short time, from just another species of big mammal to a world conqueror; and how we acquired the capacity to reverse all that progress overnight.