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| Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape | 
| Authors: Frans B. M. De Waal, Frans Lanting
Publisher: University of California Press
Category: Book
List Price: $35.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 222508
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 200
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 8.6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0520216512
Dewey Decimal Number: 599.885
EAN: 9780520216518
ASIN: 0520216512
Publication Date: October 27, 1998
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Amazon.com Review
For Frans de Waal, man is not the only moral entity, as he made clear in his last book--Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. The author has long been intrigued by chimpanzee politics and mores, and now he has turned his human heart and scientific mind to a species science has tended to celebrate solely for its sex drive. Bonobos may look like chimps, but they are actually even closer to us--far more upright, physically, for a start. Furthermore, where chimpanzees hunt, fight, and politic like mad, bonobos are peaceful, often ambisexual, and matriarchal. (Of course, hyenas are matriarchal too, but that's another story ...) De Waal's collaborator, Frans Lanting, has been photographing these gentle creatures for some years and augments the primatologist's explorations and interviews with hundreds of superb color shots. The penultimate picture is of bonobos crossing a road while schoolchildren stand watching, a short distance away. If, as the truism goes, all books about animal behavior are ultimately about us, this exploration of the bonobo may be a step in the right direction.
Product Description
This remarkable primate with the curious name is challenging established views on human evolution. 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. 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 species's most striking achievement is not tool use or warfare but sensitivity to others.
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. Focusing on social organization, de Waal compares the bonobo with its better-known relative, the chimpanzee. 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. 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. Humans share over 98 percent of their genetic material with the bonobo and the chimpanzee. Is it possible that the peaceable bonobo has retained traits of our common ancestor that we find hard to recognize in ourselves?
Eight 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. Additional photographs and highlighted interviews with leading bonobo experts complement the text. 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. Anyone interested in primates, gender issues, evolutionary psychology, and exceptional wildlife photography will find a fascinating companion in Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
Our Gentle Cousins October 15, 2008
In the popular imagination, the word "ape" conjures a brutish image, evoking a bestial human past in which life contained little more than the ruthless struggle for dominance. Until relatively recently, our knowledge of our genetic cousins seemed to confirm this picture; most apes, including chimps, have strongly hierarchical societies characterized by male dominance and frequent power struggles. The bonobo, however, has shattered scientists' assumptions about primate behavior. This book provides a fascinating glimpse into the complex lives of these gentle apes.
If bonobos could chant slogans, they would probably be imploring us to "make love, not war." Physically, bonobos differ little from other chimps, except for their smaller size. Yet their social lives are remarkably different. Although males are larger and capably of physically dominating females, female bonobos enjoy dominance within a relaxed, relatively fluid hierarchy. Unlike chimps, which can be quite violent toward members of their own species, bonobos are adept at resolving conflicts. Mostly, they achieve this through sexual behavior that would make any fundamentalist preacher turn purple (including homosexuality). Both in the wild and in captivity, they display a level of emotional intelligence that is amazing to find in a nonhuman animal, which the book documents through striking, often humorous anecdotes.
De Waal offers an intriguing discussion of how the bonobo's unique society may have evolved. Interestingly, he postulates that females became promiscuous, bonded with other females, and developed nearly year-round displays of sexual receptivity in order to counter the male habit of infanticide that sometimes occurs in chimps. Since females banded together to defend each other (and each other's offspring), and since males had no way of telling which offspring was their own, infanticide apparently disappeared. Meanwhile, as a result of their bonding, females became dominant.
Lanting's photos are striking, most of all because of the humanlike quality that comes through in so many of them. There is an astonishing...moving, in fact...familiarity in their facial expressions, intelligent eyes, gestures, and postures.
It is deeply tragic that this species, like so many, is threatened with possible extinction. Even though we have much more to learn about bonobos, their behavior raises thought-provoking questions about "human nature" and where we come from. Perhaps the "ape within" has a capacity for not only violence and patriarchy, but for cooperation and female influence as well.
Great Book June 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a great book with plenty of great photographs by Frans Lanting and a good deal of basic information on these least-known ape cousins of ours from Frans de Waal. Equally genetically and evolutionally related to us as chimpanzees, they are best known for their sexual behavior and their relatively peaceful lives compared to chimpanzees but de Waal warns that the differences are a matter of degree and there is great flexibility.
The differences between the species are interesting. Though in both species the females (normally) leave at puberty and the males always remain in their birth groups, bonobo females bond more and males bond less than in chimpanzees. But the more important difference is that in bonobos the most important and strongest relationship is that between mother and son. This is all-important and at the core of bonobo society and includes serious rivalry between mothers over their sons' dominance ranks - and the fights between the mothers can be viscious.
What most people immediately think of when the bonobo is mentioned is sex, sex, and more sex. This is often misinterpreted and tends to obscure what is really going on. De Waal says their social life is better understood as being peppered by brief moments of sexual activity, the majority of which does not involve intromission nor is it carried through to sexual climax. It is largely brief and casual and used to reduce conflict. And when it comes to full mating with receptive females, this is normally limited to the top two males who occupy, with the females, the center of a travelling party and from where adolescent and lower ranking males are excluded.
De Waal discusses the possibility that the extended female receptivity of the female bonobo - receptive for nearly half of her adult life compared to 5% for the chimpanzee female - may be the bonobo strategy for avoiding male infanticide. In some species one male will remain with one or more females and protect his young from harm from others. In other species females mate with many males, including proactively soliciting males when the females are not normally receptive because they are not fertile, and this 'paternity confusion' is seen as a stategy to counter male infanticide. Infanticide has been observed in increasing numbers of species but, as yet, not in bonobos. De Waal suggests that the particular relationships of bonobos, with the reduced male aggression towards and dominance over females, may be a successful anti male-infantide strategy.
Another suggestion de Waal makes is that, as chimpanzee females have food priority when they are sporting sexual swellings, the extended sexual swellings and receptivity of bonobo females may have extended their food priority. Bonobo females almost always have food priority over males.
Another important difference between bonobo and chimpanzee is the relations between goups. Though chimpanzee females, like bonobo females, move between groups to breed (using sexual swellings as 'passports'), chimpanzee males from different groups are very aggressive and sometimes kill. Though bonobo males are antagonistic towards outsider males and display aggressively, there can be contact between the females of the two groups that meet and sexual contact between males and females of the two groups. I have read elsewhere that this contact between females, who in some cases will be known to each other as females move between groups, may have been something similar to the way our early ancestors were able to overcome full-blown aggression between groups, the females acting as links between groups that would ultimately lead to potentially positive alliances and trading links.
Whether we'll ever learn enough about these apes before they become extinct is unlikely. And that is sad. Whether we are interested in other species for comparision with our own or simply in order to understanding their particular evolutionary stories, we need to convince greater numbers of people that other species are interesting and deserve our full respect and protection. This book contributes to this for the bonobo.
 the spine broke - very disappointing May 27, 2008
the spine on this book broke - i like to have my books stay in very good shape so this was disappointing
Bonobos have sex for fun! August 7, 2007
I was fortunate to see the two Frans' lecture in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park over a decade ago where they discussed their new book and showed slides of the bonobo apes. I found it all quite intriguing and purchased my autographed copy there.
The most fascinating part was that bonobos love sex. They have sexual encounters multiple times per day with many different partners (except mother/son) in all types of positions yet have the same amount of offspring as other apes. An amicable lot, compared to the aggressive chimpanzee, bonobos tend to have sex to rectify disputes as well as for the pure pleasure of it. The bonobos are a matriarchal group, taking their cues from the females versus typically the males. I thought it was interesting that we humans are now reevaluating whether it is indeed the aggressive, patriarchal chimpanzee that we evolved from or the sensual bonobo ape.
Frans Lanting captured a photograph of two bonobos having missionary style intercourse, she on her back with her arms over her head and with the biggest grin on her face! A gorgeous book, gorgeous animals.
Extremely Enlightening! November 11, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Although I love learning about animals just because I love learning about animals - this book brings many important issues to the forefront - issues which directly relate to humans and human culture. For that reason, I highly recommend this book to anyone who has any curiosity about human behavior - especially as it pertains to sex. While Dr. de Waal is careful to avoid generalizations and anthropomorphisms, you will have fun drawing your own conclusions!
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