Knowledge book of the year 2025 in the OVERVIEW category
In times of global crises, the book delivers an encouraging message: things can be better together and those who cooperate have a clear advantage. Dirk Brockmann proves this message with an almost unbelievable wealth of examples, told in an exciting way along the evolutionary history of life. Starting with bacteria, protozoa and viruses, through fungi and plants, to animals and humans, this story shows that it is not primarily rivalry and competition that have driven evolution on our planet, but rather that the success of a species is mostly based on cooperation.
Darwin’s “Survival of the fittest”, often mistranslated or misunderstood as “survival of the fittest”, is clarified by Brockmann: Fitness in the evolutionary sense is not to be equated with muscle strength, but rather means successful adaptation to the respective living conditions. And this ability to adapt works better through collaboration – even across species boundaries. A sea snail carries out photosynthesis because a retrovirus implants the necessary genes into it. Frog embryos team up with single-celled algae to produce energy. Dwarf squid harbor bacteria that make them invisible to predators. New species arise more often through spontaneous cooperation between existing species than through slow change. Evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis put it this way: “Life conquered the globe not by fighting, but by networking.”
Barbara Ritzert
Dirk Brockmann
Survival of the cutest
How nature shapes our world through cooperation
dtv, 288 p., € 24,–
ISBN 978-3-455-01692-5