'This fat complex good-natured and intriguing book is full of such memorable
material...startling and often thrilling' Spectator ' A heroic effort ... rich with complex
narrative full of unexpected twists like the inquisitors' tale' Economist For almost five
million years humans have been locked in a relationship with morality inventing and
reinventing the concepts of 'Good' and 'Evil' and weaving them into our cities laws and
customs. Morality is a concept that can feel joyless and claustrophobic associated with
restraint and coercion restriction and sacrifice inquisition confession and a guilty
conscience. For many it is a device used to shame us into compliance. This impression is not
necessarily incorrect but it is most certainly incomplete. Hanno Sauer traces humanity's
fundamental moral transformations from our earliest ancestors through to the present day when
it can often seem that we have never disagreed more over what it means to be good and what it
means to be right. But we can use our past as a basis for a new understanding of our future.
Our current political disagreements may feel like the end of the world but where will the
evolution of morality take us next?
