ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

This book is the brainchild of a conversation between two grown men thinking back to the struggles of their younger selves and looking forward to helping generations of young men still to come. It took an immense amount of work and it would not exist without the invaluable contributions of a number of incredibly thoughtful, supportive people, including:

Byrd Leavell is a phenomenal agent and an even better human being, an accomplishment that cannot be understated for someone who went to UVA. Byrd represented and supported us at every step of the process from conception to publication, offering insight, warnings, encouragement, and silence at all the right times.

John Parsley, our editor, to whom we are indebted. He understood everything we were trying to accomplish from Day 1, when he walked into our first meeting carrying a stack of Little Brown titles that had unique voices and great messages. Then, eighteen months later, he did it again, when he took our behemoth first draft and cut 40% out of it without losing anything important while also managing to make it more engaging. We think we are the only writers in history who can say their editor took a hacksaw to their book, and are glad he did it.

Sabrina Callahan, the director of publicity at Little, Brown, was open to any and every idea we had, and brought a number of her own to the table that made getting this book in front of people a pleasure instead of chore.

Jean Garnett, Miriam Parker, Mario Pulice, Malin von Euler-Hogan, Michael Noon, and the rest of the team at Little, Brown & Company were great to work with at every step. The whole team was as good as it gets in publishing. This is not bland praise. All three of us have worked with multiple publishing houses, and Little, Brown is the best.

Erin Tyler is not only a great friend, but she’s a brilliant artist and graphic designer who worked seamlessly with us and the Little, Brown creative department to get us to a great cover that we all like—a result that is no easy feat, as many authors and publishers can surely attest.

Joe Antenucci, Zach Obront, Andrew Lynch, Charlie Hoehn, and all the others who read early drafts and provided valuable feedback.

Veronica Pike, Jennifer La Macchia, and Dr. Carin Perilloux were the three strongest, smartest, most engaged female influences on this book and its authors from beginning to end. This book doesn’t get to where it is without them.

Individually, Geoff gives thanks for support, inspiration, ideas, and constructive criticism to: his parents, Frank and Carolyn Miller, brother Bryan, and daughter Atalanta Arden-Miller; his mentors Ken Binmore, John Brockman, Bruce Buchanan, David Buss, Leda Cosmides, Helena Cronin, Martin Daly, Robert Frank, Steve Gangestad, Gerd Gigerenzer, Linda Gottfredson, Jonathan Haidt, Nick Martin, Randy Nesse, Nigel Nicholson, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, Roger Shepard, Rory Sutherland, Randy Thornhill, and David Sloan Wilson; his friends and collaborators Rosalind Arden, Tim Bates, Marco del Giudice, Judith Donath, John Durant, Mia Erichson, Dylan Evans, Sara Figal, Diana Fleishman, Jennifer Freyd, Glenn Geher, Vladas Griskevicius, Martie Haselton, Scott Barry Kaufman, Matt Keller, Rob Kurzban, Barry Kuhle, Jena la Flamme, Greg Lukianoff, Eben Pagan, Brad Payne, Lars Penke, Nando Pelusi, Carin Perilloux, Kaja Perina, Arand Pierce, Nikky Prause, Catherine Randall, Chris Ryan, Andrew Shaner, Peter Todd, Rob Wiblin, Elizabeth Yeater, Ron Yeo, and Brendan Zietsch; his intellectual role models and life-of-the-mind heroes Iain M. Banks, Gary Becker, David Byrne, Leda Cosmides, Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Alain de Botton, Robin Dunbar, William Eberhard, Francis Galton, Jürgen Habermas, Sam Harris, Friedrich Hayek, Christopher Hitchens, Alfred Kinsey, Herbert Marcuse, Charles Murray, John Nash, Friedrich Nietzsche, Vance Packard, Camille Paglia, Chuck Palahniuk, Karl Pearson, Michael Shermer, Dean Keith Simonton, Peter Singer, Christina Hoff Sommers, Michael Spence, Neal Stephenson, Nassim Taleb, John Tooby, Robert Trivers, Thorstein Veblen, Richard Wrangham, and Amotz Zahavi.

Individually, Tucker wants to thank: his co-authors, Nils and Geoff (pretty much everyone else is covered above).

Geoff was the intellectual engine for this book; without his expertise and deep knowledge, I would have screwed a TON of stuff up in here. All I did was add detail and narrative and examples; Geoff brought the heft and muscle.

And Nils made this happen. In a weird way, he’s probably the most important author of this book. The book sounds nothing like my carefree, curse-laden writing style, and nothing like Geoff’s intellectual, academic style—yet, somehow, it captures the best parts of both of our voices. Without the incredibly writing, editorial, and storytelling abilities Nils brought to the project, this book would never exist. If you’re ever lucky enough to be able to work with him, leap at the chance.