The Third Chimpanzee Yea/Nay?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In your humble opinion:

Have you read The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond?

Did you like and agree with what he had to say?

Or did you hate it and disagreed with what he had to say?

2

(note to self: resist temptation to make “spanking the monkey joke”)

Seriously, never heard of the book in question, so I’m afraid I can’t help you.

3

Have you read The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond?
Nope, is it any good? Or are you checking too?

4

I’m pretty sure I read it, but I can’t remember any of the claims made. Maybe you could throw a few out to job my memory?

5

Pretty sure you read it? Can’t remember? Haven’t heard of it? Geesh. I thought I was the last person on the planet to be reading it!

I’m about half way through and it is fascinating. I can’t decide if it seems so striking because I’ve read all around it or because it seems to pull together most of what I have been reading and have liked. Of course, the other alternative could be that he is a gifted writer who knows his subject matter. Gee, I wonder which one it is?

Table of Contents goes:

Part One: Just Another Species of Big Mammal

  1. A tale of Three Chimps
  2. The Great Leap Forward

Part Two: An Animal with A Strange Life Cycle
3. The Evolution of Human Sexuality
4. The Science of Adultery
5. How We Pick Our Mates and Sex Partners
6. Sexual Selection, and the Origin of Human Races
7. Why Do We Grow Old and die?

Part Three: Uniquely Human
8. Bridges to Human Language
9. Animal Origins of Art
10. Agriculture’s Mixed blessings
11. Why do We Smoke, Drink, and Use Dangerous Drugs?
12. Alone in a Crowded Universe

Part Four: World Conquerors
13. The Last First Contacts
14. Accidental Conquerors
15. Horses, Hittites, and History
16. In Black and White

Part Five: Reversing Our Progress Overnight
17. The Golden Age That Never WAs
18. Blitzkrieg and Thanksgiving in the New World
19. The Second Cloud

Epilogue: Nothing Learned, and Everything Forgotten

Haven’t finished reading it, but am LOL a lot.

Contact your favorite one line book store and buy a paperback, new or even used (!) and then come back and comment!

6

Book in question is quite good, but I don’t recall that he said anything very conttroversial. But his book “Guns, germs and steel” is positively brilliant, centering mostly around the question of why civilization (as we know it) originated where it did and not where it didn’t.