The Social Edge: Power of Sympathy Groups for our Health, Wealth and Sustainable Future

We’re obsessed with finding big, complicated, technological solutions to these modern ills. But what if the solutions lie not in techno fixes, but in harnessing the power of one of the oldest and simplest human units – the sympathy group? The sympathy group is the smallest social unit outside the family. People who share a common interest and solve a challenge through facilitated conversation. Working together in sympathy groups is the secret of success in all areas of human endeavour - from agriculture to child-care, trade, science, theatre, music, the military, business and sport. In a radical new argument, award-winning scientist Professor Anthony Costello lays out a new science of cooperation based on 20 years studying community participation through women’s sympathy groups in Bangladesh, India, Malawi and Nepal. He shows how tapping the power, ingenuity and tenacity of small groups: In this fascinating, funny and important book, Professor Costello dares to suggest twenty two social experiments to underpin solutions. Sympathy groups tackling their own health, organisation and environment challenges are not an optional, ‘nice’ extra. They are central, profoundly important, and ignored. The book explains how science can harness the power of sympathy groups to: