NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/soc/singles/31338

Text File | 1992-11-20 | 1.7 KB | 37 lines

Newsgroups: soc.singles
Path: sparky!uunet!digex.com!huston
From: [e-mail] (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: Are you a Young Transplant?
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Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 12:47:57 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (James Davis Nicoll) writes:
>    I just read  a fascinating book called 'Chimpanzee Politics'.

The subtitle is _Power and Sex Among Apes_.  The book was written by Frans
de Waal.  The new 1989 paperback edition was published by Johns Hopkins
University Press and is ISBN 0-8018-3833-9.  It's the best book about the
practical aspects of power politics since _The Prince_.  The stories about
The Great Escape and Dandy and the Grapfruits are neat, too.

>In Chimpanzees, gender appears to have an effect on the manner  in
>which conflicts are created and resolved. One neat  bit was that male
>violence-in-pursuit-of-social-rank is less likely to involve actions
>like biting  (Male   chimpanzees have  huge canines;  using them  is
>potentially lethal).

In _Peacemaking Among Primates_ (1989, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-
65921-X), de Waal compares the reconciliation behaviors of five primates, and
in the chapter on chimps he continues his account of the political maneuverings
of Yeroen, Luit, and Nikkie.  Violence finally erupts, and one of these
politicians is killed.  (The other primates are two species of monkeys,
bonobos, and humans.)

-- Herb Huston
-- [e-mail]