As the historian Yuval Harari spelt out in his seminal book Sapiens, the ability to tell stories was perhaps the major catalyst in our transformation from a relatively vulnerable savannah ape into an organism that would go on to completely rewrite the rules of the food chain. Our creation of both oral and written cultures, and the cooperative team

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However, fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.