As always he encompasses a wide range of topics: Why do bureaucracies fail? Are we really an innovative animal? Is nationalism a purely constructed phenomenon? What is the role of sexual competition in epic literature? In all these enquiries he tries to show in non-technical language how the evolutionary approach throws new light on old problems—and even raises new and more interesting problems. He pursues the issue of whether we have a naturally developed moral sense, and if so what it could possibly be (on the way attempting a definitive definition of the good); he looks at the status of the idea of self-interest in economic and biological science; he examines the current state of archaeology as a basis for a renewed scientific anthropology; and he tries to adjudicate the debate between the scientific and humanistic camps in the social sciences.