CURRENT RESEARCH

For information on current research being conducted by Frans de Waal and his team, please visit the Living Links Research Website.

OTHER BOOKS BY FRANS DE WAAL

Our Inner Ape - 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. Review from Publisher's Weekly.

Bonobo - 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.

 

 

Chimpanzee Politics - The first edition of Frans de Waal's Chimpanzee Politics was acclaimed not only by primatologists for its scientific achievement but also by a much broader audience of politicians, business leaders, and social psychologists for its remarkable insights into very basic human needs and behaviors. In this revised edition—featuring a new gallery of color photographs along with a new introduction and epilogue—de Waal expands and updates his story of the Arnhem colony and its continuing political upheavals. We learn the fate of many memorable chimpanzees and meet the colony's current leaders and their allies. The new edition remains a detailed and thoroughly engrossing account—of sexual rivalries and coalitions, of actions governed by intelligence rather than instinct—and it reaffirms the complex bond between humans and their closest living relatives. As we watch the chimpanzees of Arnhem behave in ways we recognize from Machiavelli (and from the nightly news), de Waal reminds us again that the roots of politics are older than humanity.


Good Natured - To observe a dog's guilty look. to witness a gorilla's self-sacrifice for a wounded mate, to watch an elephant herd's communal effort on behalf of a stranded calf--to catch animals in certain acts is to wonder what moves them. Might there he a code of ethics in the animal kingdom? Must an animal be human to he humane? In this provocative book, a renowned scientist takes on those who have declared ethics uniquely human Making a compelling case for a morality grounded in biology, he shows how ethical behavior is as much a matter of evolution as any other trait, in humans and animals alike.

For a complete listing of books by Frans de Waal visit:
http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/books.html

For research publications by Frans de Waal and other members of the Living Links Center visit: http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/articles.html