Review Of "Manipulative Monkeys: The Capuchins Of Lomas Barbudal" By S. Perry And J. H. Manson

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

7-1-2008

Published In

Choice

Abstract

Manipulative Monkeys is the latest in a remarkably long series of books about women studying free-living primates. Like most of the genre starting with Jane Goodall's chimpanzee work, this book describes the unimaginable hardships that primatologists Perry and Manson (both, Univ. of California, Los Angeles) endured in finding and observing wild primates. Individuals and groups are identified; communication, social structure, male and female strategies appear; and then the dark side of their behavior arises as the observations extend to decades. Far from being aberrant human behaviors, murder, coercive sex, and Machiavellian politics seem to be at the very root of their social structure. The aggressive, hyperactive capuchins will not have the great appeal of chimpanzees to the general reader, but the accounts of the authors' trials studying the animals make lively reading--if heavy on detailed accounts of individual behavior. The writing is nontechnical, and many scholars will object to descriptions of individuals as "thugs" and the authors' personal attachment to individual monkeys. The book includes about 30 photographs (some in color), abundant footnotes, and several appendixes. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through graduate students.

Comments

This work is freely available courtesy of Choice Reviews. The review has been reproduced in full in the abstract field.

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