Humans have always faced the threat of extinction. This book takes a broad perspective of the ‘extreme’ conditions of human existence and survival to examine how extremes have forced humans to change and how such extremes have determined the nature of society.
This book is the final volume in The Evolution of Human Sociality series, a collaborative research project between primatologists and anthropologists. In seeking to understand human sociality, twenty-one authors focus on states of extremity and the ways in which they are perceived and confronted by humans and primates. The contributors consider, among other topics, the ʻextremesʼ of urbanization and the disappearance of village societies; the ʻextremes’ of climate change, the Anthropocene, and the extinction of the human species; the ʻextreme’ of human birth; the ʻextreme’ of the absence of mothers for infant chimpanzees; and the ‘extreme’ of radiation disaster.
On a more theoretical level, the book illustrates what happens at the moment when humans and primates choose their actions to survive under the pressure of extremes, as well as the mechanisms at the ‘tipping’ points of their action selection.

本書は、霊長類学と人類学の英知が「極限」というレンズを通し、人間社会の根源を照射する野心的な一冊です。絶滅の危機や環境激変、母を失った幼い命の軌跡など、多様な切り口から私たちが「人間」であるための境界を鋭く問いかけます。極限下での行動選択が露わにする「生存の本質」を浮き彫りにする筆致は、まさに知の最前線に立つスリリングなドラマです。 多角的な視点が織りなす議論は、現代社会の揺らぎを予見し、読者の知的好奇心を激しく揺さぶります。マクロな気候変動からミクロな個の生までを繋ぐ壮大な構成は、不確実な時代を生き抜くための哲学的な灯火となるでしょう。人間性の深淵を覗き込み、その進化の果てを見届けたいと願う全ての魂を魅了してやまない、究極の思索の旅がここにあります。