largely, but not exclusively, the story of the rise, propagation of, and reaction to ideas of various kinds. A nation is a set of people who share some sort of common idea. A culture is a set of ideas that is passed from person to person. Personal identity is largely based on the ideas a person believes about himself or herself. Roles, which are the essential feature of human social interaction, are ideas assimilated by those who see themselves in them. All of our institutions--our ways of doing large things, that is--are based on ideas about our position in them or relative to them and our understanding, participation in, acceptance, or rejection of the methods used to achieve the institution's purposes.
Ideation is a by-product of consciousness, which in turn can be seen as an epiphenomenon of the brain's evolution. (Perhaps consciousness became self-reinforcing, genetically, after its utility for survival manifested itself.) Therefore, the roots of our society and culture are ultimately biological.
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