Impressive exposition and clearly written

I particularly enjoyed the first part, where he talked about evolutionary theory/psychology. Although much of the material and ideas were known to me, I found McCullough's exposition as possibly the most accessible, clear and straight forward exposition that I've read. I had feared that the book would quickly delve into a kind of thinking where mushy and comforting feelings about that in fact humans are nice, prosocial creatures, despite a lot of mind-blowing, reasoned, good evolutionary theory and a lot of selfish behaviour to the contrary, but there was none of that.
To the contrary McCullough gave a very clear exposé of Neo-Darwinian reasoning as it's known from Dawkins and others, and despite Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene is a classic, I think, I might recommend new readers McCullough's book as his book treats it in such a superbe and pedagogical way.
What I particularly appreciated was his account of Wynn-Edwards's and later Wilson's ideas about group-selection and multilevel selection. For some time, I've been unable to find a clear presentation and discussion or a clarification of the discussion, whether selection is at the level of genes or whether some kinds of group- or multilevel selection can be permitted.
I ended up being convinced that the ideas about group selection in the end doesn't explain anything that Hamilton's rule, kin selection and inclusive selection can't explain (as or more simply). Because of these explanations, I've ordered a hard-copy of the book, so I can reread those sections and can put it in the library.
The second part is less focused on evolution and more on political, moral and economical history in order to explain kindness. I was less taken in by this part of the book. I would have loved if the former evolutionary thinking had somehow remained part of the thinking throughout the book, but they seemed strangely absent all of a sudden.
First in the conclusion did he try to bring the many strands together, but without bringing anything to the table that made me fall off my seat. I felt that I had somehow heard it before. It was all very true and right, but nothing I thought was truly novel and thought provoking.

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