The Lawrence Jacobsen Library
P-S/PrimateLit Review Books

Laland, Kevin N.; Galef, Bennett G., eds.
Harvard University Press, 2009.

The Question of Animal Culture, ed. by Kevin N. Laland and Bennett G. Galef
ABOUT THE BOOK
Fifty years ago, a troop of Japanese macaques was observed washing sandy sweet potatoes in a stream, sending ripples through the fields of ethology, comparative psychology, and cultural anthropology. The issue of animal culture has been hotly debated ever since. Now Kevin Laland and Bennett Galef have gathered key voices in the often rancorous debate to summarize the views along the continuum from “Culture? Of course!” to “Culture? Of course not!” The result is essential reading for anyone interested in the validity of animal culture, and what it might say about our own.


ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Kevin Laland is Professor, School of Biology, St. Andrews University.

Bennett G. Galef is Emeritus Professor of Psychology, McMaster University, and past editor of Animal Behaviour.


WHAT REVIEWERS ARE SAYING:

Laland and Galef have assembled some of the best mind in the business to review the evidence for socially transmitted behaviors in animals and to consider the extent to which creatures such as chimpanzees, orangutans, and whales can be said to have “culture.” -- Sarah B. Hrdy

Reading this book is like sitting ringside, watching the authors duke it out over the nature and uniqueness of our cultural prowess. – Marc D. Hauser, author of Moral Minds


CONTENTS

1. Introduction -- Kevin N. Laland and Bennett G. Galef
2. In tune with others: the social side of primate culture -- Frans B. M. de Waal and Kristen E. Bonnie
3. Ten dispatches from the chimpanzee culture wars, plus postscript (Revisiting the battlefronts) -- W. C. McGrew
4. Geographic variation in the behavior of wild great apes: is it really cultural? -- Carel P. van Schaik
5. The identification and differentiation of culture in chimpanzees and other animals: from natural history to diffusion experiments -- Andrew Whiten
6. How might we study culture? A perspective from the ocean -- Hal whitehead
7. From social learning to culture: intrapopulation variation in bottlenose dolphins -- Brooke L. Sargeant and Janet Mann
8. Animal culture: problems and solutions -- Kevin N. Laland, Jeremy R. Kendal, and Rachel L. Kendal
9. The question of chimpanzee culture, plus postscript (Chimpanzee culture, 2009) -- Michael Tomasello
10. Culture in animals? -- Bennett G. Galef
11. Are nonhuman primates likely to exhibit cultural capacities like those of humans? -- Susan Perry
12. Animal “culture”? -- Kim Hill
13. Peacekeeping in the culture wars -- Kim Sterelny


WHERE TO ORDER

ISBN: 978-0-674-03126-5 (hardback); $49.95

Harvard University Press
79 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-1400

Phone: 617-496-1340
Fax: 617-349-5244

Website: http://www.hup.harvard.edu
Link to order online: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/LALQUE.html

Posted Date: 2009-02-18

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