Jane Goodall (author)

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Jane Goodall (author)

fschmidt
Administrator
Read these books by Jane Goodall in order: In the Shadow of Man and Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe.  These books were what led me to think of the co-alpha concept.  Somehow it seems easier for people to look objectively at behavior when looking at another species, and this is the big advantage of looking at chimps.  Talking about the behavioral differences of men and women is not socially acceptable, but talking about the behavioral differences of male and female chimps is considered perfectly acceptable.  The fact is that humans aren't all that different from chimps, certainly much less different than most people believe.  Another big advantage is that chimps are not affected by world culture.  They don't watch TV and act as TV tells them to act.  So in some ways, chimps may actually behave more like "natural" humans than modern people do.

Besides all this, these are great books, very well written.  You will enjoy reading them and you will learn a lot.