A major, paradigm–shifting work by one of our most dazzling public intellectuals that grapples with humanity's most fundamental desire: to matter.

MacArthur Fellow and author of Plato at the Googleplex, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein returns with a book about the primal drive that in our species alone has been transformed into one of our most persistent and universal motivations: the longing to matter.

Drawing on biology, psychology, and philosophy, Goldstein argues that this longing is the source of both interpersonal and societal progress and conflict—the very crux of the human experience. The "mattering map," a concept that she first introduced in her bestselling novel The Mind–Body Problem, returns to illuminate how our need for significance shapes identity, relationships, and culture. Goldstein seamlessly merges rigorous scholarship with compelling storytelling, offering a framework to understand and harness this universal drive.

The Mattering Instinct is a profound exploration and a major intellectual contribution, decades in the making, of what it means to be human, challenging readers to reconsider their place in the world and their connections to others.