Machiavellian Intelligence

Our unique human intellect, it is usually argued, results from evolutionary pressures for skilled tool use and communication to enhance co-operation. This book explores a quite different idea: that the driving force was social expertise. The need to outwit one's clever colleagues produced an evolutionary spiralling of `Machiavellian intelligence'.
This book is a complete text on this topic, including the origins of the idea, a wealth of exciting applications in anthropology, psychology, and zoology, and a comparison with more traditional ideas.