FROM OUR EDITORS

Have we unjustly given apes a bad name? For decades, our violent, aggressive, competitive, territorial nature has been attributed to our animal ancestors. But isn't our sense of cooperation, empathy, and morality equally apish? In this engrossing, provocative book, biologist and ethnologist Frans de Waal shows what the behavior of violent, power-hungry chimpanzees and egalitarian, erotic bonobos can tell us about human genetic traits.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

One of the world's foremost primatologists explores what our two closest relatives in the animal kingdom-the violent, power-hungry chimpanzee and the cooperative, empathetic bonobo-can tell us about the duality of our own human nature.

We have long attributed man's violent, aggressive, competitive nature to his animal ancestry. But what if we are just as given to cooperation, empathy, and morality by virtue of our genes?

From a scientist and writer whom E. O. Wilson has called "the world authority on primate social behavior" comes a lively look at the most provocative aspects of human nature-power, sex, violence, kindness, and morality-through our two closest cousins in the ape family. For nearly twenty years, Frans de Waal has worked with both the famously aggressive chimpanzee and the lesser-known egalitarian, erotic, matriarchal bonobo, two species whose DNA is nearly identical to that of humans.

De Waal brings his apes to life on every page of this book, letting their personalities, relationships, power struggles, and high jinks captivate our hearts and minds. The result is an engrossing and surprising narrative that explores what their behavior can teach us about ourselves and about one other. Illustrated with one 16-page black-and-white insert.

Author Biography: Frans de Waal, Ph.D., is the author of five previous books, which have been translated into fourteen languages, including The Ape and the Sushi Master, a New York Times Notable Book, and Peacemaking Among Primates, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, NATO, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Geographic Society, among others. De Waal is currently C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

FROM THE CRITICS

Temple Grandin - The New York Times Book Review

De Waal's most hopeful message is that peaceful behavior can be learned, as he showed when he raised juvenile rhesus and stumptail monkeys together. The aggressive rhesus juveniles picked up peaceful ways of resolving conflict from the larger, gentler stumptails. And the lessons took: even after the two species were separated, the rhesus continued to have three times more grooming and other friendly behavior after fights. This important and illuminating book should help our own species take that lesson in civility to heart.

Publishers Weekly

Noted primatologist de Waal (Chimpanzee Politics) thinks human behavior cannot be fully explained by selfish genes and Darwinian competition. Drawing on his own primate research on chimpanzees and bonobos-our closest animal relatives-he shows how much we can learn from them about ourselves: our qualities of "fellow feeling and empathy" as well as our power-obsessed, violent side. We are "bipolar apes," de Waal says, as much like bonobos as like chimps. The latter are known for their viciousness and "red in tooth and claw" social politics, but bonobos offer a radically different social model, one of peace and hedonistic orgies; de Waal offers vivid, often delightful stories of politics, sex, violence and kindness in the ape communities he has studied to illustrate such questions as why we are irreverent toward the powerful and whether men or women are better at conflict resolution. Readers might be surprised at how much these apes and their stories resonate with their own lives, and may well be left with an urge to spend a few hours watching primates themselves at the local zoo. Agent, Michelle Tessler. (Oct. 6) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

World renowned primatologist de Waal (Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape) has written an informative and engaging work that stresses the similarities and differences among humans, bonobos, and chimpanzees. Focusing on ape behavior (e.g., empathy, cooperation, decision making, social alliances, status hierarchies, conflict resolutions) within an evolutionary framework, he argues that the evolved bipolarity of human nature is grounded in our biological link to both the erotic and peaceable bonobos and to the aggressive and brutal chimpanzees. In his view, the "two inner apes" of our own species have their origin in the social behavior of those two distinct fossil apes that existed millions of years ago. In this vein, he pays special attention to wild chimpanzee violence and wild bonobo sexuality. This unique investigation offers insights derived from de Waal's own research experiences with primates at the Arnhem zoo in Amsterdam and at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center near Atlanta. With excellent photographs and extensive sources, this book is recommended for all academic and public science collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/05.]-H. James Birx, SUNY at Geneseo Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Apes are our nearest relatives, and we have far more in common with them than we realize. De Waal (Psychology/Emory Univ.; The Ape and the Sushi Master, 2001, etc.) has made a career of studying chimpanzees and bonobos, the two species closest to us on the evolutionary family tree. Many years of watching apes interacting-and paying close attention to individual apes-have revealed just how much of human nature arises from pre-human roots. We all recognize and mock the "animal" behavior of politicians and media stars ruled by the drives for sex and power. Chimpanzees are past masters of political infighting, and the easy sexuality of a bonobo tribe might make a Roman orgy seem sedate. But empathy and compassion are also part of our primate heritage, de Waal argues, offering plentiful examples-both anecdotal and rigorous-from his studies to support his point. He saw one zoo chimpanzee carry a stunned bird to the top of a tree and toss it in the air, trying to help it fly away. A chimpanzee mother, when the author showed an interest in her baby, carefully turned it around so the researcher could see its face. These and other observations show, he believes, that apes have the ability to see things from the point of view of others. The strong sense of community in a tribe of apes also appears to have a parallel in human groups-especially those living in small towns where everyone knows their neighbors. While the strongest ape usually rules his tribe, it is common for others to form alliances to resist a tyrant. De Waal extrapolates convincingly from his observations, many of which will surprise readers who think of apes as stupid brutes. Fascinating and enlightening: It's hard not to concludethat, in many ways, apes may be wiser than their upright relatives.