When Arthur Koestler, the famed novelist and respected polymath, penned those words more than 30 years ago, he was seeking to draw our attention to a phenomenon that is greatly underrated and vastly more important even than Koestler imagined. I call it nature's magic.

Grand theories are commonplace these days. It seems that new ideas must shout to be heard. So the claims for this book may sound like hyperbole as usual. The thesis, in brief, is that synergy – a vaguely familiar term to many of us – is actually one of the great governing principles of the natural world. It has been a wellspring of creativity in the evolution of the universe, and it has greatly influenced the overall trajectory of life on Earth. It has played a decisive role in the emergence of humankind. It is vital to the workings of every modern society. And it is no exaggeration to say that our ultimate fate depends upon it.

All this may sound like so much dust-jacket rhetoric, but the Synergism Hypothesis (as I call it) is a serious scientific theory that is fully consistent with Darwin's theory, and with the canons of the physical, biological, and social sciences, not to mention the new science of complexity.