Is happiness catching? Are your friends making you fat? Can your sibling make you smart? Is wealth contagious? Where is true love found? Does free will exist? Based on exciting discoveries in mathematics, genetics, psychology and sociology, 'Connected' is an innovative and fascinating exploration of how social networks operate. Think it's all about who you know? It is. But not the way you think. Turns out your colleague's husband's sister can make you fat, even if you don't know her. And a happy friend is more relevant to your happiness than a bigger income. Our connections -- our friends, their friends, and even their friends' friends -- have an astonishing power to influence everything from what we eat to who we sleep with. And we, in turn, influence others. Our actions can change the behaviours, the beliefs, and even the basic health of people we've never met. In this brilliantly original and effortlessly engaging exploration of how much we truly influence one another. Pre-eminent social scientists Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler explain why obesity is contagious, why the rich get richer, even how we find and choose our partners. Intriguing and entertaining, with revelatory implications for everything from our notion of the individual to ideas about public health initiatives, 'Connected' will change the way you think about every aspect of your life, and how you live it.

Connected: The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives

Politics & Social Sciences

Nicholas A. Christakis

Social Sciences

HarperCollins, Publishers

Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives

James H. Fowler

Little, Brown Spark

Blueprint

Drawing on advances in social science, evolutionary biology, genetics, neuroscience, and network science, Blueprint shows how and why evolution has placed us on a humane path - and how we are united by our common humanity. 
For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society. 
In Blueprint, Nicholas A. Christakis introduces the compelling idea that our genes affect not only our bodies and behaviors, but also the ways in which we make societies, ones that are surprisingly similar worldwide. With many vivid examples - including diverse historical and contemporary cultures, communities formed in the wake of shipwrecks, commune dwellers seeking utopia, online groups thrown together by design or involving artificially intelligent bots, and even the tender and complex social arrangements of elephants and dolphins that so resemble our own - Christakis shows that, despite a human history replete with violence, we cannot escape our social blueprint for goodness. 
In a world of increasing political and economic polarization, it's tempting to ignore the positive role of our evolutionary past. But by exploring the ancient roots of goodness in civilization, Blueprint shows that our genes have shaped societies for our welfare and that, in a feedback loop stretching back many thousands of years, societies have shaped, and are still shaping, our genes today.

Anthropology

Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio

Blueprint - Wie unsere Gene das gesellschaftliche Zusammenleben prägen

S.Fischer

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Books by Nicholas A. Christakis