Do social facts exist only because we believe in them? Does the world thereby break down into different spheres of being? No, says John Searle; there is only one reality - the one described by the natural sciences. Searle explores how the components of the social world can seamlessly fit into this reality and why they are just as real as things that exist independently of humans. Language and thought, mind and nature, freedom and determinism are discussed alongside institutions and the phenomenon of power. How we create the social world thus brings all of Searle's life themes together into a unified theory of human civilization.