The Lawrence Jacobsen Library
P-S/PrimateLit Review Books

Boesch, Christophe.
Cambridge University Press, 2009.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Real Chimpanzee encapsulates the fascinating behavior of wild chimps and discusses the differences observed in different populations across the species, and across the many levels of their social behavior. It tells the story of why sex competition in a forest chimpanzee population made the females of the group highly social and gave the males a high level of within-group solidarity, making them very xenophobic towards outsiders. Christophe Boesch brings back to the table the debate over ecological pressures and social organization, and the influence they have over issues such as the evolution of warfare, co-operation, altruism and the position of females. Writing for undergraduate and graduate students, he presents insightful views to give readers the background information to understand the struggle for survival of our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, and through this find some keys to the ever-so-intriguing question of what makes us human.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christophe Boesch is Professor and Director of the Department of Primatology at the Max-Planck- Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany.

CONTENTS
1. Make love and war? – From the dream of the hippies to the reality where sex and violence often intrinsically intermingle to produce some of the complex strategies used by both sexes to find partners and reproduce.

2. Inconspicuous female superiority – How the traditional image of females as the passive and submissive sex has changed into the sex determining and controlling reproduction to her advantage in the competition with more powerful males, and how a female manipulates males to select the best sperm for her offspring.

3. The tyranny of the testis – How males have been able to develop, within a system of dominance and aggression, close tight cooperative units that fight for the good of group members and how this has made altruism becomes one of the most impressive behaviors contributing to the survival of individuals.

4. Odyssey through our forest past – Sex and cooperation in the forest: what is life like as a large social primate in a dense tropical forest where the visibility is restricted to 20 meters and where most aspects of sociality have to be inferred and communicated by vocalizations?

5. Make war to get love – From the individualistic struggle of both sexes to find suitable partners and resources to cooperative teams increasing reproduction and how that leads to both fatal violence and altruism, while females pursue sexual exchange that males cannot prevent.

6. The real chimpanzee – From a millennia-long past in Central African forests to adaptation into more open habitat regions in East Africa as well as in savannah-like regions, chimpanzees have conquered many regions, and this expansion into more marginal habitats resulted in some dramatic shifts in males’ cooperation and altruism as well as in the females’ control over reproduction and social position.

7. When sex becomes destructive – Why humans, one of the most cooperative and altruistic species, became so destructive throughout their range and why some of the challenges solved peacefully by chimpanzees have become so destructive in humans.

8. Postscript: Fédora’s fate – Will Fédora, the chimpanzee baby I saw develop and become a skillful tool user, survive the loss of her hand to poachers and be able to survive as a young successful mother? In remote areas, chimpanzees are tracked by humans; without decisive and rapid action they have no future, and our cousins, our roots to the past, will vanish before we get to know them.

References

Index

WHERE TO ORDER

ISBN 978-0-521-11008-2 (Hardcover) $115.00
ISBN 978-0-521-12513-0 (Paperback) $48.00
ISBN 978-0-511-59072-6 (eBook) $38.00

Cambridge University Press
100 Brook Hill Dr.
West Nyack, NY 10994-2133
Tel: 845-353-7500
Fax: 845-353-4141

Website: www.cambridge.org
Link to order online: http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521110082

Posted Date: 2009-11-05

URL: http://library.primate.wisc.edu/collections/books/index.php
File last modified: September 29, 2009