These three intelligent cousins share a common ancestor that lived five to seven million years ago. Ninety-eight percent of our DNA is the same as theirs. In the family of life, humankind’s two closest living relatives are bonobos and chimpanzees, two apes with strikingly different approaches to living. It also seemed to be misogynistic which didn't add to it's appeal at all.Ĭome to think of it, maybe a German edition is suited to this 'ex' Nazi, author despite him writing the book in English. Not long ago I read Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal and I couldn't get his Nazi allegiance out of my head. It's all in Ape and the Sushi Master if you are interested. The Ape and the Sushi Master: Reflections of a Primatologist was ok but tainted by my knowledge (I didn't really look up the author when I read Bonobos) that he had been a Nazi, writing on his application form, "I'm able to say that my whole scientific work is devoted to the ideas of the National Socialists," changing his tune after Germany lost WWII but his hero remained the appalling, but brilliant, Konrad Lorenz who proposed that creatures of a lesser breed should be exterminated. I like my bookshelves to reflect the edition I read especially if it is a book I own.Īs far as the book is concerned, it is the only one of Frans de Waal that I really do like. Then to add insult to injury (always like a good cliche) I went to the new book page to change it and found that I couldn't see any other editions, or if they are there couldn't find them. Why was this? Who made this the default edition? Was this some German librarian making German books the default? The original book was written in English by an English-speaking author. Īug 2022 My edition was switched to Bonobos: Die zärtlichen Menschenaffen. Anyone interested in primates, gender issues, evolutionary psychology, and exceptional wildlife photography will find a fascinating companion in Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape. This book points the way to viable alternatives to male-based models of human evolution and will add considerably to debates on the origin of our species. Additional photographs and highlighted interviews with leading bonobo experts complement the text. Is it possible that the peaceable bonobo has retained traits of our common ancestor that we find hard to recognize in ourselves?Įight superb full-color photo essays offer a rare view of the bonobo in its native habitat in the rain forests of Zaire as well as in zoos and research facilities. Humans share over 98 percent of their genetic material with the bonobo and the chimpanzee. Further, the bonobo's frequent, imaginative sexual contacts, along with its low reproduction rate, belie any notion that the sole natural purpose of sex is procreation. The bonobo's relatively nonviolent behavior and the tendency for females to dominate males confront the evolutionary models derived from observing the chimpanzee's male power politics, cooperative hunting, and intergroup warfare. Focusing on social organization, de Waal compares the bonobo with its better-known relative, the chimpanzee. In the first book to combine and compare data from captivity and the field, Frans de Waal, a world-renowned primatologist, and Frans Lanting, an internationally acclaimed wildlife photographer, present the most up-to-date perspective available on the bonobo. The species's most striking achievement is not tool use or warfare but sensitivity to others. In bonobo society, females form alliances to intimidate males, sexual behavior (in virtually every partner combination) replaces aggression and serves many social functions, and unrelated groups mingle instead of fighting. The bonobo, least known of the great apes, is a female-centered, egalitarian species that has been dubbed the "make-love-not-war" primate by specialists. This remarkable primate with the curious name is challenging established views on human evolution.
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