supports the entrepreneurship of the global poor. The “vision of the Rising Billions is alluring, because even a billion pennies a day adds up … I think of this approach as the Lichen Strategy” (p. 92). The author then proceeds to explain lichen and further discuss microfinancing and crowd-sourcing. While readers may know about one of these topics, this book builds connections. While the content and principles may not be new to the business or biomimetic community, this book provides a translation between these two communities within the context of current social trends. This book does an excellent job explaining how evolution works and the role of competition and collaboration within natural selection. The author discusses the relationship of the two, using competition and collaboration to demonstrate how biology can be useful for businesses. “I know first-hand that predation and parasitism are real, and that every group of collaborators needs to protect their collective wealth against them. Competition does drive life’s radical innovations …” (p. xvi). This is a common theme throughout the book, how collaboration is utilized to gain a competitive advantage within the non-human world. A biomimetic book intended for businesses could be useful for discussing their role in the face of climate change, but this book tiptoes around the topic. The author opens the book with the statement “This is not a tree-hugging book …” (p. xv). All the examples throughout the book discuss how businesses can continue to practice as usual with only a shift in organizational structure. The role of businesses in the face of climate change is reserved for the end of the book where the overall statement is “creat-
ing conditions suitable for life” (p. 284) and thus nurturing the next generation. The author uses termites to demonstrate that conditions for life are a byproduct of compounding wealth to make the next generation more successful. Once again this is not a novel perspective or role for businesses, and opens the question whose life are we making conditions suitable for. The author compares our production of waste to photosynthetic bacteria, which created oxygen in an anaerobic environment and caused a mass extinction – ecosystem engineers are often both disruptive (creating niches) and destructive. However, once again the author does not critique our behavior or offer any answers beyond the vague advice to create conditions for life. By equating us to photosynthetic bacteria as an organism that altered the planet, the book offers a biological excuse for our behavior, yet unlike the bacteria, the changes we are making to the planet are not only leading to the extinction of many species but also rising climate related human deaths in the most vulnerable populations of the globe. This book does not address the most pressing issue, climate change, that has led people to question the problem the author seeks to address: businesses seeking to create infinite wealth on a finite planet, where resources are shared across a diverse body of people and organisms. Though the book reserves the last few chapters to instill a sense of urgency, it offers no course for businesses to embrace the needed radical change. The book addresses capitalism as merely requiring an adjustment in strategy in order to continue to spread globally. “Global organizations are increasingly realizing that American-style capitalism doesn’t play everywhere” (p. 101). The au-
Zygote Quarterly: zq21 | Volume 4, 2017 | ISSN 1927-8314 | Pg 101 of 106