The Naked Ape--A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal PDF
Preview The Naked Ape--A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal
Strip a Man of His Clothes and Conventions and What Do You Find? “If one took a group of twenty suburban families and placed them in a primitive sub-tropical environment where the males had to go off hunting for food, the sexual structure of this new tribe would require little or no modification. In fact, what has happened in every large town or city is that the individuals it contains have specialized their hunting (working) techniques, but have retained their socio-sexual system in more or less its original form... . Only in the field of general breeding information are we now coming face to face with the first major assault on our age-old sexual system by the forces of modern civilization. Thanks to medical science, surgery and hygiene, we have reached an incredible peak of breeding success. We have practised death control and now we must balance it with birth control. It looks very much as though, during the next century or so, we are going to change our sexual ways at last. But if we do, it will not be because they failed, but because they succeeded too well.” — from The Naked Ape “This is not only a thoughtful and stimulating book, but also an extremely interesting one.” — The Times (of London) Literary Supplement A Delta Book Published by Dell Publishing a division of Random House, Inc. 1540 Broadway New York, New York 10036 Copyright © 1967 by Desmond Morris AU rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, unthout the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: McGraw-Hill, New York, New York. The trademark Delta® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. ISBN: 0-385-33430-3 Reprinted by arrangement with McGraw-Hill Manufactured in the United States of America Published simultaneously in Canada April 1999 Preface to the new edition of The Naked Ape, 1983 This book was written in November 1966 in four explosive, exhausting weeks. I can still recall the surprise I felt when I discovered that the palms of my hands were sweating as I typed. There was a manic intensity about those four weeks which at the time I could not explain. Looking back, it is easier to understand. The writing of The Naked Ape was a short, sharp climax to a long gestation period. As a child I had always been surrounded by animals of many kinds— foxes, crows, rabbits, lizards, parrots, snakes, toads, shrews, newts, voles, hedgehogs—the list was endless. I kept them, watched them, studied them and bred them. I enjoyed their company more than that of other members of my own species. Later, as a young professional zoologist, I started a major investigation into the behaviour of fish, following that a few years later by another long study of bird behaviour. Moving to the Zoological Society of London, I became Curator of Mammals and concentrated my researches on a wide variety of mammalian species, culminating with detailed studies of monkeys and apes, especially chimpanzees. It was as if I was unconsciously working my way up the family tree towards my own kind, approaching the human species, as it were, from below. The childhood shyness that had driven me so much into the company of other animals was gone. I was now at home with humans, but having approached them in this roundabout way meant that I saw them in a rather unusual light. I viewed my fellow-man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape—a naked ape of remarkable resilience, energy and imagination, but an animal for all that. Just another species for me to examine. I knew that many people resented being called animals, as though this was in some way disgusting—an insult to human dignity. Since • I had always loved animals I found this rather depressing. It meant that such people had a low opinion of the other members of the animal kingdom. For me, it was just the reverse. Before I wrote The Naked Ape, I had preferred to study other, more beautiful and more fascinating species. Now, at last, I was prepared to elevate the human species to the level of one of my beloved animal forms. Of course, I guessed that I might shock some of the more starry-eyed escapists— people who were still gullible enough to believe the old fairy-tales designed to keep superstitious medieval peasants in their place—and I also suspected that the deliberate frankness of some of my statements might prove distasteful to the more sheltered puritans. But I was in no mood to compromise or to soften my message. I wanted to tell the truth as I saw it, bluntly and straightforwardly, with all the usual ‘waffling’, side-stepping and philosophical smoke-screening swept away. The ape was naked, not merely because he had lost his thick coat of fur during the course of evolution, but also because I intended to strip him bare on the pages of my book and show him as he really is—a remarkable, ingenious, brilliant animal. No less and no more. Contents Preface to the new edition of The Naked Ape, 1983 Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: ORIGINS Chapter Two: SEX Chapter Three: REARING Chapter Four: EXPLORATION Chapter Five: FIGHTING Chapter Six: FEEDING Chapter Seven: COMFORT Chapter Eight: ANIMALS Appendix: Literature Bibliography
The list of books you might like
