Richard E. Blanton is professor of anthropology at Purdue University. A recognized authority on the pre-Hispanic cultures of Mesoamerica, he is past president of the Society for Economic Anthropology and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has made significant contributions to the theoretical and comparative study of early states, cities, and economies.Lane F. Fargher is investigator in the Department of Human Ecology, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN—Unidad Mérida, Yucatán, México and codirector of the Tlaxcallan Archaeological Project (in Tlaxcala, Mexico). A Mesoamerican archaeologist and cross-cultural researcher, he is interested in the role of cooperation and collective action in markets, ancient cities, landscapes, and households.

"This is a brilliant work that offers a raft of insights and new ideas drawn from more than a dozen academic disciplines. . . . Clearly, this is a topic of great twenty-first-century significance."—Gary Feinman, The Field Museum"How Humans Cooperate is 'big' anthropology, the likes of which we do not see every day.​ ​. . .​ ​Blanton and Fargher have done us a service by bringing this literature​ [of extra-anthropological disciplines]​ to our attention, and it will be interesting to see if other anthropologists pick up this line of investigation and what insights it yields."—Anthropology Review Database​"​[A] provocative book addressed not so much to archaeologists but to those who would choose to ignore wide swathes of our history in constructing models of how we interact with each other in larger groups. With Fargher, Blanton demonstrates that well-functioning institutions​ are foundational to maintaining collective benefits in both modern and pre-modern states."—Antiquity

Richard E. Blanton is professor of anthropology at Purdue University. A recognized authority on the pre-Hispanic cultures of Mesoamerica, he is past president of the Society for Economic Anthropology and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has made significant contributions to the theoretical and comparative study of early states, cities, and economies.Lane F. Fargher is investigator in the Department of Human Ecology, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN—Unidad Mérida, Yucatán, México and codirector of the Tlaxcallan Archaeological Project (in Tlaxcala, Mexico). A Mesoamerican archaeologist and cross-cultural researcher, he is interested in the role of cooperation and collective action in markets, ancient cities, landscapes, and households.

"This is a brilliant work that offers a raft of insights and new ideas drawn from more than a dozen academic disciplines. . . . Clearly, this is a topic of great twenty-first-century significance."—Gary Feinman, The Field Museum"How Humans Cooperate is 'big' anthropology, the likes of which we do not see every day.​ ​. . .​ ​Blanton and Fargher have done us a service by bringing this literature​ [of extra-anthropological disciplines]​ to our attention, and it will be interesting to see if other anthropologists pick up this line of investigation and what insights it yields."—Anthropology Review Database​"​[A] provocative book addressed not so much to archaeologists but to those who would choose to ignore wide swathes of our history in constructing models of how we interact with each other in larger groups. With Fargher, Blanton demonstrates that well-functioning institutions​ are foundational to maintaining collective benefits in both modern and pre-modern states."—Antiquity

Richard E. Blanton is professor of anthropology at Purdue University. A recognized authority on the pre-Hispanic cultures of Mesoamerica, he is past president of the Society for Economic Anthropology and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has made significant contributions to the theoretical and comparative study of early states, cities, and economies.Lane F. Fargher is investigator in the Department of Human Ecology, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN—Unidad Mérida, Yucatán, México and codirector of the Tlaxcallan Archaeological Project (in Tlaxcala, Mexico). A Mesoamerican archaeologist and cross-cultural researcher, he is interested in the role of cooperation and collective action in markets, ancient cities, landscapes, and households.

"This is a brilliant work that offers a raft of insights and new ideas drawn from more than a dozen academic disciplines. . . . Clearly, this is a topic of great twenty-first-century significance."—Gary Feinman, The Field Museum"How Humans Cooperate is 'big' anthropology, the likes of which we do not see every day.​ ​. . .​ ​Blanton and Fargher have done us a service by bringing this literature​ [of extra-anthropological disciplines]​ to our attention, and it will be interesting to see if other anthropologists pick up this line of investigation and what insights it yields."—Anthropology Review Database​"​[A] provocative book addressed not so much to archaeologists but to those who would choose to ignore wide swathes of our history in constructing models of how we interact with each other in larger groups. With Fargher, Blanton demonstrates that well-functioning institutions​ are foundational to maintaining collective benefits in both modern and pre-modern states."—Antiquity