Visions of Caliban: On Chimpanzees and People Book

"We share ninety-nine percent of our genes with chimpanzees, and our relations with them epitomize both our kinship with and our alienation from the rest of the natural world. In this groundbreaking book, a brilliant writer and a great scientists paint an extraordinary portrait of chimpanzees, humans, and our complex lives together since the 1600s, when chimpanzees first became known in Europe and William Shakespeare created Caliban, neither man nor beast but 'honored with a human shape.'

"This vision of Caliban is brought vividly to life by the authors' stories of their personal experiences with chimpanzees, in the wild and in captivity. The humanity of chimps is captured in accounts of their use of tools and medicinal plants, their sense of self, and their devotion to one another -- and sometimes to humans. Our inhumanity toward them is illustrated by chilling accounts of the international chimpanzee trade and of the abuse of chimps in medical research and entertainment. The poignancy of our relationship is revealed in tales of chimps raised as children by humans and then abandoned to laboratories or sent back to the wild, where they mush learn to be chimps again.

"With a cast of characters that ranges from Shakespeare to J. Fred Muggs, Visions of Caliban is a dramatic, entertaining, and affecting investigation of man's relationship to chimpanzees."
~~front flap

This was a very difficult book to read. Poignant, distressing, informative, enlightening. It wasn't what I was expecting at all, having been thrown off the scent by the second portion of the title: "On Chimpanzees and People." I don't know how to talk about this book, really. I came away with a much better idea of the real nature of chimpanzees, and also of their precarious balance on the brink of extinction -- due to the all-too-common causes of habitat destruction and overhunting. It came as a distinct shock to read about how we, in the United States (and other Western European nations) are actively involved in, and complicit in, the latter menace.

The book is very well written, researched and supported in minute detail. I recommend it -- it will broaden your outlook and open your eyes a bit further on how we think about the natural world, and our place in it and our relationship to it.