The essays in the book analyze cases of cooperation in a wide range of ethnographic, archaeological and evolutionary settings. Cooperation is examined in situations of market exchange, local and long-distance reciprocity, hierarchical relations, common property and commons access, and cooperatives. Not all of these analyses show stable and long-term results of successful cooperation. The increasing cooperation that is so highly characteristic of our species over the long term obviously has replaced neither competition in the short term nor hierarchical structures that reduce competition in the mid term. Interactions based on strategies of cooperation, competition, and hierarchy are all found, simultaneously, in human social relations.

Contributions by: James Acheson, Matthew Bird, Gracia Clark, Bruce Dahlin, Malcolm Dow, E Anthon Eff, Agustín Fuentes, Katrina T. Greene, Julie Hogeland, Scott R. Hutson, Carolyn Lesorogol, Daniel Mazeau, Kathleen Millar, Rahul Oka, Benjamin Porter, Ronald Rich