About this title: Here is the naked ape at his most primal - in love, at work, at war. Meet man as he really is: relative to the apes, stripped of his veneer as we see him courting, making love, sleeping, socialising, grooming, playing. Zoologist Desmond Morris's classic takes its place alongside Darwin's "Origin of the Species", presenting man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape, remarkable in his resilience, energy and imagination, yet an animal nonetheless, in danger of forgetting his origins. With its penetrating insights on man's beginnings, sex life, habits and our astonishing bonds to the animal ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Dell Pub. Co., New York
Date Published: 1969
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Nice soft cover, lightly read, light shelf wear to cover, tiny tear on side of front cover, tip of top corner on back cover torn off, light aging to pages, stk #2446aa. 205 p.; 18 cm. "A Dell book. " "6266. " Cover illustration by Bama. Bibliography: p. [201]-205. read more
Edition: 1st Dell Printing
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Dell Pub. Co., New York
Date Published: 1969
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. GOOD READER. 205 p.; 18 cm. "A Dell book. " "6266. " Cover illustration by Bama. Bibliography: p. [201]-205. read more
Binding: PAPERBACK
Publisher: Dell Publishing Company, Inc.
Description: Good. B000GQYDCY Good condition, minor wear. No major marks or damage. Shelf wear along the edges of cover. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Great customer service and a no problem, EZ return policy. Real people, real service, since 1981. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Dell, [New York
Date Published: 1967
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. One vertical crease (along corner of spine) and one diagonal crease on front cover. One reading crease on spine. Text is clean though mildly tanned. Binding is tight. 252 p. 21 cm. A Delta book.. Bibliography: p. 247-252. read more
"The naked ape is a classic. It's about humans, but it's written by a zoologist, who treats us as just another type of ape.
The premise is this: If you took the skin of one of each species of primate and examined them closely, there's one that would stick out - the human. We're not covered in hair, hence the naked ape. He then goes on to describe the myriad ways in which we resemble apes, physically, psycologically, socially, sexually, etc. It's brilliant stuff.
It reminds me of a question asked in Douglas Coupland's Generation X: What animal would you be, if you were an animal? Answer: You already are an animal."
"Classic study of our evolutionary behavioural relationship to our ape like ancestors. Morris studies these relationships in several categories:Sex, Rearing, Exploring, Fighting, Feeding and Comfort. His analysis is fascinating, although in a few categories I think his theories are somewhat stretched. Overall this is a most important study of human behaviour."
"I would have given "The Naked Ape" a 4-star rating based on its handling of human evolution and animal behavior, unfortunately 1960's style moralizing creeped in and caused me to lower my rating to a 3. The boomer generation was really annoying in how they viewed themselves as saviors to the planet when they were really just as selfish and materialistic as their parents (and less moral and responsible). Even with those reservations, the descriptions of human and animal behavior and human evolution are very good and fresh even after 40 years on the shelf. Some of the crucial aspects of human evolution and primate behavior have been tweaked since publication. For instance, Chimpanzees do form hunting parties and meat makes up a small but important part of their diet. Also, bi-pedalism and pair-bonding seem to have developed while our primate ancestors still lived in a forest rather than as an adaptation to carnivorous savanna dwelling."
"I spent a year in Marbury, a non-authoritarian school modelled on Summerhill. It was all too weird for words. Next time any of you wonder why I don't know what continent Spain is in, or why places that are further away have times that are closer or...keep in mind that my geography text book for the year was The Naked Ape.
Well, I say it was that sort of school like it's to blame for my appalling ignorance of geography. If only I'd chosen a normal school instead. But truth be told, the next year I did chose an ordinary school - Methodist Ladies College - and blow me down if the maths teacher didn't turn out to be a girl who made us do things like write poetry. 'Your maths assignment for today is to write a poem in the style of Jabberwocky' It's moot whether my maths is worse than my geography.
Sigh. I wouldn't mind so much if my poetry was any good."
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