As an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Biology and Society, I am busy writing my second book, which examines the biological sciences during the 1920s and 1930s. Alongside Jane Maienschein and Manfred Laubichler, I am working to identify scientific networks across different continents, different branches of biology, and several different “levels” of biological organization. The scientists I’m studying had just lived through what was, at that time, the deadliest war in the history of the species, and they were keen not to do it again. This inclination necessarily influenced science. Around the world, biologists in a variety of different fields began studying the evolutionary origins of cooperation with increased urgency. They may have studied ants, plants, or amoeba, but their science invariably raised questions with serious implications for human societies. Namely, what is the source of the social impulse and how can we nurture it? What are the mechanisms that maintain harmony in diverse societies? Can we exist as a global people or must we insist on dividing into warring nation-states? These questions are more relevant than ever, and I hope my research encourages others to rethink traditional assumptions about the history of biology, the nature of cooperation, and the state of world affairs.