Primate Societies

This volume is now over 20 years old, but it has remained a valuable resource for me. One of my areas of interest is how an understanding of primate behavior and society might inform us somewhat about human nature and human politics. This volume features 40 separate chapters, each authored by an expert. The editors of this volume, Barbara Smuts, Dorothy Cheney, Robert Seyfarth, Richard Wrangham, and Thomas Struhsaker, are all well reputed primatologists. The work is divided into several sections. The first, "Evolution of Diversity," explores the variety of primates, with key aspects of their societies. For instance, one essay examines dominance hierarchies among female prosimians; another looks at cooperative behavior among chimpanzee males; one essay explores territoriality and monogamy among gibbons. Part II examines "Socioecology." Essays consider such key questions as food distribution and foraging behavior, group interactions, the evolution of social structure, and predation. Part III centers on "Group Life," and considers such issues as infants and adult males, gender and aggression, conflict and cooperation. Part IV focuses on "Communication and Intelligence." The last part looks to the future of primates, asking how we might preserve our closest relatives in the living world and what primate research might be like in the future. Even long of tooth, now, this volume still retains value for me in my research and is a high standard against which similar volumes must be compared.

This book brings together information from primate field studies and presents it in an evolutionary context. 46 contributors cover more than 100 species of primate. Though it was published 20years ago it is still a great source of information - and before 40years ago very little was known about non-human primates. The diversity of primates is clear from this collection. Mating systems, sexual dimorphism, infanticide by adult males, female dominance, dispersal and philopatry, aggression, conflict and cooperation, communication and intelligence - a wide range of observations of primate behavior are covered. I've found this book a very useful source.

Many interesting and readable chapters discussing numerous aspects of primate social life. There is one chapter for virtually every primate genus, and many more general chapters as well. As an actuary, I especially enjoyed the chapter on the demography of certain primate populations, particularly rhesus macaques.