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Title: The Ape Within Us
Review: Wrangham presents some fundamental insights. Why do female gorillas stay close to their reigning silverback? Because only he can protect their babies from being killed by other silverbacks. Why do adolescent male chimpanzees intimidate every female in their group? So the youngersters will not be refused when it comes time for sex. Why do bonobos, physically similar to chimpanzees, behave in a much less violent manner? Because they evolved in a place where there were no gorillas to preempt an important food source. There are two kinds of male orang-utans, small ones that must rape to reproduce and large one that have no such need. These, and other insights, are carefully reasoned from the most recent field data. Perhaps not all of his explanations of ape behavior will stand the test of time but each of them is interesting and worth further research. The reader, male and female, is challenged into introspection: how much of the modern apes lies within our modern selves?
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