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The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (P.S.)

Amazon ASIN: 0060845503 LowestNewPrice CurrencyCode USD LowestNewPrice FormattedPrice $7.00 LowestUsedPrice CurrencyCode USD LowestUsedPrice FormattedPrice $5.30 LowestCollectiblePrice CurrencyCode USD LowestCollectiblePrice FormattedPrice $24.95 TotalNew 43 TotalUsed 42 TotalCollectible 2 TotalRefurbished 0

Product Details

Author Jared Diamond Binding Paperback DeweyDecimalNumber 573.2 EAN 9780060845506 ISBN 0060845503 Label Harper Perennial Type Original Language Type Unknown Type Published CurrencyCode USD FormattedPrice $14.95 Manufacturer Harper Perennial NumberOfItems 1 NumberOfPages 432 ProductGroup Book PublicationDate 2006-01-01 Publisher Harper Perennial ReleaseDate 2006-01-03 Studio Harper Perennial Title The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (P.S.)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet -- having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art -- while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins? In this fascinating, provocative, passionate, funny, endlessly entertaining work, renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world . . . and the means to irrevocably destroy it.

Amazon.com Review
Jared Diamond states the theme of his book up-front: "How the human species changed, within a short time, from just another species of big mammal to a world conqueror; and how we acquired the capacity to reverse all that progress overnight." The Third Chimpanzee is, in many ways, a prequel to Diamond's prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. While Guns examines "the fates of human societies," this work surveys the longer sweep of human evolution, from our origin as just another chimpanzee a few million years ago. Diamond writes:

It's obvious that humans are unlike all animals. It's also obvious that we're a species of big mammal down to the minutest details of our anatomy and our molecules. That contradiction is the most fascinating feature of the human species.

The chapters in The Third Chimpanzee on the oddities of human reproductive biology were later expanded in Why Is Sex Fun? Here, they're linked to Diamond's views of human psychology and history.

Diamond is officially a physiologist at UCLA medical school, but he's also one of the best birdwatchers in the world. The current scientific consensus that "primitive" humans created ecological catastrophes in the Pacific islands, Australia, and the New World owes a great deal to his fieldwork and insight. In Diamond's view, the current global ecological crisis isn't due to modern technology per se, but to basic weaknesses in human nature. But, he says, "I'm cautiously optimistic. If we will learn from our past that I have traced, our own future may yet prove brighter than that of the other two chimpanzees." --Mary Ellen Curtin

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