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Rating: 
Summary: Nice effort; needs a little tinkering
Review: I liked this book. It offers an informative and broad overview of the achievements in primatology during the late 20th century, particularly those of women. As a layperson, I appreciate very much that "Beauty and the Beasts" is intellectually stimulating, but not overwhelming. The subject matter is riveting: Women who sacrifice their lives to the study of primates. They risk being mauled by the subjects of their observations, eaten by lions, gored by bulls, kidnapped, raped--by both terrorists and orang-utans--and murdered. They often sacrifice their familial relationships, the opportunities of husbands and children and social interaction with other human beings. Carole Jahme takes on an enormous amount of material in her well organized and easily accessible book. I disagree with some of her politics, particularly regarding motherhood and infanticide. We are given case after case citing the importance of young primates fully bonding with their mothers, yet Jahme repeatedly excuses the many female primatologists she profiles for all but abandoning their young children. She also argues that infanticide is biological and defends British law which generally punishes the crime with probation and psychiatric care. I cannot excuse a mother murdering her baby, particularly in developed Western countries where women have options. Despite our biological urges, we have moral obligations to rise above nature. But these represent mere paragraphs in a highly enjoyable book. The editing, however, is no less than criminal as it unavoidably undermines Jahme's scholarly credibility. There are numerous grammatical errors and confusing sentences. Most unfortunate are the several dozen typos. Of the most notable are on page 240 where we are informed that "Picasso also sketched a money painting a nude woman" and on pages 299-300 where primatologist Amy Parish is twice referred to as "Paris" rather than Parish. This is inexcusable. I also find the title and cover design/photograph inappropriate. Both seem a bit trite for this intellectual undertaking and tend to perpetuate the stereotype of lovely Western white women in the jungle living as one with the animals. All criticisms aside, I recommend this book. It offers insightful perspectives toward the evolution of human beings and the sentience of all life--there is God in everything. We are left with the realization that though we as the dominant species can sing arias and build hospitals, we are not entitled to hold barbaric dominion over earth. "Beauty and the Beasts" is a worthwhile read (though I might wait for a revised edition).
Rating:
Summary: Nice effort; needs a little tinkering
Review: I liked this book. It offers an informative and broad overview of the achievements in primatology during the late 20th century, particularly those of women. As a layperson, I appreciate very much that "Beauty and the Beasts" is intellectually stimulating, but not overwhelming. The subject matter is riveting: Women who sacrifice their lives to the study of primates. They risk being mauled by the subjects of their observations, eaten by lions, gored by bulls, kidnapped, raped--by both terrorists and orang-utans--and murdered. They often sacrifice their familial relationships, the opportunities of husbands and children and social interaction with other human beings. Carole Jahme takes on an enormous amount of material in her well organized and easily accessible book. I disagree with some of her politics, particularly regarding motherhood and infanticide. We are given case after case citing the importance of young primates fully bonding with their mothers, yet Jahme repeatedly excuses the many female primatologists she profiles for all but abandoning their young children. She also argues that infanticide is biological and defends British law which generally punishes the crime with probation and psychiatric care. I cannot excuse a mother murdering her baby, particularly in developed Western countries where women have options. Despite our biological urges, we have moral obligations to rise above nature. But these represent mere paragraphs in a highly enjoyable book. The editing, however, is no less than criminal as it unavoidably undermines Jahme's scholarly credibility. There are numerous grammatical errors and confusing sentences. Most unfortunate are the several dozen typos. Of the most notable are on page 240 where we are informed that "Picasso also sketched a money painting a nude woman" and on pages 299-300 where primatologist Amy Parish is twice referred to as "Paris" rather than Parish. This is inexcusable. I also find the title and cover design/photograph inappropriate. Both seem a bit trite for this intellectual undertaking and tend to perpetuate the stereotype of lovely Western white women in the jungle living as one with the animals. All criticisms aside, I recommend this book. It offers insightful perspectives toward the evolution of human beings and the sentience of all life--there is God in everything. We are left with the realization that though we as the dominant species can sing arias and build hospitals, we are not entitled to hold barbaric dominion over earth. "Beauty and the Beasts" is a worthwhile read (though I might wait for a revised edition).
Rating: 
Summary: Beauty & The Beasts
Review: Jahme relates the great surge in the past 50 years in the study of primates by the great encouragement of noted anthropologist Louis Leakey inspiring Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas and other women to live among chimps, baboons, gorillas, bonobos and orangutans, and study their daily behavior. She describes the women, their personal lives, their discoveries of primate behavior, the utility of those discoveries for the study of man. Jahme is aware that when one tries to tame a wild creature, that creature's behavior can change. It is a well written book with references to other books on similar subjects. Its general conclusion is that our primates are very close to us.
Rating:
Summary: Women and primatology?
Review: That 62% of all primatologists who study chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas in hazardous and arduous terrains all over the world are women. Given the rigors of the fieldwork, this is nothing short of amazing. Some were once recruited to the field by Dr. Louis Leakey because he believed women to be more empathic and less biased observers than their male counterparts. He was right! These women range from the famous (Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Mark Leakey) to those known only within their profession (Shirley McGrill, Birute Galdikas), to others known only in obscurity. Beauty And The Beasts is the story of these women as authoritatively related by primatologist and documentary film maker Carole Jahme. The informative and exceptionally well written text is enhanced with an impressive section of photographs and tidbits of trivia (Maureen O'Sullivan, who played "Jane" in the Tarzan movies, couldn't abide Jiggs, who played Tarzan's chimpanzee companion "Cheeta"). Beauty And The Beasts is a very strongly recommended title for academic and community library collections, primatology students, and the non-specialist general reader with an interest in the history of primatology.
Rating:
Summary: Well-organized, with fascinating anecdotes
Review: The great apes share more than 98 percent of our DNA and in the last 40 years women have come to dominate the study of our closest relatives. Today 62 percent of primatologists are women. British primatologist Jahme's anecdotal overview of primate research focuses on the women who have shaped the field since Jane Goodall ("The Chimpanzees of Gombe," "Reason for Hope") established her chimp site at Gombe in 1958. Though women have made most of the startling discoveries about wild primate behavior, it was a man, Louis Leakey, who got it all started. Believing that the study of apes would enhance our knowledge of human evolution and convinced that women were more patient and observant than men, and therefore more suited to fieldwork, Leakey encouraged Jane Goodall's interest in wildlife and steered her to chimps. Inspired by Goodall's work, Leakey's other two "trimates", Dian Fossey ("Gorillas in the Mist") and Biruté Galdikas ("Reflections of Eden") achieved similarly impressive results studying gorillas and orangutans. Jahme strikes a good balance between the work and the women, relating the dangers and controversies along with the triumphs. Jane Goodall left Gombe for two years after she was nearly abducted by terrorists in 1975 (four other workers were taken and later ransomed) and she has been criticized for influencing chimp behavior by using feeding stations (a practice she also now condemns). Dian Fossey was only in the Congo a few months when she was kidnapped and repeatedly raped by soldiers in 1967. She was the last white person to escape the Eastern Congo and all she wanted to do was get back to her gorillas, which she did, establishing a base on the Rwandan side of the mountain. Over the years her reputation for eccentricity grew as she risked her life and battled poachers and eco-tourism in an effort to save her beloved gorillas from extinction. Fossey was murdered in December 1985 and Jahme believes her sacrifice saved the gorillas, at least for now. Birute Galdikas has all but sacrificed her scientific reputation in her passion to save the rain forests and the orangutans of Borneo. But Jahme moves far beyond the three leading ladies of primate study. She discusses Sarah Hrdy's discovery of the link between female promiscuity and male infanticide, Jo Thompson's study of the female-bonded bonobos, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's work with apes and language, Thelma Rowell's successful challenge of male dominance theories among baboons, Barbara Smuts' work with chimps, dolphins and baboons. Just to name a few. She explores how understanding of primate behavior has helped shape our understanding of human evolution and how field observation overturned the traditional male approaches and assumptions, until science came to embrace the idea that animals have emotions and are capable of love, murder and tool use. She profiles the women who rehabilitate captive chimps into the wild, sacrificing years of their lives in an effort that, more often than not, seems to end in death and heartbreak. She explores the lives of captive chimps in showbusiness, in American Sign Language programs, in zoos and laboratories. Captive apes, we learn, love to watch TV. A universally favorite movie is "Quest for Fire." Jiggs, star of the early Tarzan movies, and at 68, the oldest chimp in captivity, prefers his own performances above all. The book's scope is tremendously ambitious and Jahme manages to interview almost everyone she mentions. It's a massive feat of organization, so well done it seems almost seamless. There is so much fascinating source material that the choice of what to leave out must have been daunting. In each chapter she presents biographical and research anecdotes that best illustrate the work and the people conducting it. Her decision to include details of the personal and sexual lives of these prominent field researchers serves to underscore points of commonality with their animal subjects and to illustrate a pattern - an inability or unwillingness to commit to human relationships. With few exceptions, these women put non-human primates first. While Jahme's prose is less than scintillating (nothing a good editor couldn't have fixed), her writing is clear, accessible and entertaining. It's an excellent introduction to the community of primate research and may spark interest in a broad audience. Her extensive (partial) bibliography will steer interested readers to more in-depth studies, particularly the many fascinating books of the field researchers Jahme profiles.
Rating: 
Summary: Disorganized and Juvenile
Review: This book was a great idea, and Jahme has gathered loads of interesting data. Unfortunately, she has no idea how to organize it or write about it. She writes like a C student in a freshman composition class. It is incredibly frustrating to try to follow any line of argument or indeed any narrative in this book, because it is constantly being interrupted by anything else that is on Jahme's mind at the moment, relevant or not. Everything makes her think of something else, and so the anecdote or argument originally being developed gets left far, far behind. This lack of organization in itself would be endurable if Jahme did not have a very juvenile writing style as well. I was appalled that the manuscript was accepted for publication: the editor should have insisted that Jahme work with a ghost writer. This book does a real disservice to the intelligent, dedicated women who have devoted themselves to primatology. Readers would be better served by reading the excellent books of primate researcher Sue Savage-Rumbaugh.
Rating:
Summary: Disorganized and Juvenile
Review: This book was a great idea, and Jahme has gathered loads of interesting data. Unfortunately, she has no idea how to organize it or write about it. She writes like a C student in a freshman composition class. It is incredibly frustrating to try to follow any line of argument or indeed any narrative in this book, because it is constantly being interrupted by anything else that is on Jahme's mind at the moment, relevant or not. Everything makes her think of something else, and so the anecdote or argument originally being developed gets left far, far behind. This lack of organization in itself would be endurable if Jahme did not have a very juvenile writing style as well. I was appalled that the manuscript was accepted for publication: the editor should have insisted that Jahme work with a ghost writer. This book does a real disservice to the intelligent, dedicated women who have devoted themselves to primatology. Readers would be better served by reading the excellent books of primate researcher Sue Savage-Rumbaugh.
Rating:
Summary: Women and primatology?
Review: This entertaining book by primatologist Jahme discusses female primatologists. Jahme heralds the achievements of well-known luminaries such as Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas and others, including paleontologist-archeologist Mary Leakey (who only in a very technical sense was a primatologist). More important perhaps, she justifiably draws attention to the disproportionate contributions of female compared to male scientists in the study and pioneering understanding of primates. The style and presentation are anecdotal and personal, yet one can easily come to appreciate the major achievements of the women through both description and photographs. To add a trendy touch, there are photos from movies ranging from documentaries made about female primatologists to famed Hollywood productions such as the Planet of the Apes series. Because this is a book for the general public, the frontispiece figure depicting a "primate family tree" is unfortunate. It shows all the "sidelines," and from lowly beginnings presents a near straight lineage up to the "Cro-magnons." This kind of iconography perpetuates the 19th-century (not Darwinian) notion of directed evolution toward our glorious selves. A handsome book, recommended for general readers.
Rating: 
Summary: Women who love primates
Review: This is a fascinating book and a must read for anyone interested in primates, primatology, evolution of man, the history of this area of science, the development of language, and the conservation of primates. Jahme discusses the major female primatologists (Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas) as well as many lesser known, but equally important, women (and some men) in the field. Women seem to be better suited to studying primates in the wild, over long periods of time, in physically demanding and isolated environments than men are. They are attracted to this challenging field partially because of their innate maternal instincts. I gave this book a 4 because there are several factual mistakes, and many grammatical errors. These interfere with the flow of thought and makes one wonder if there are other factual errors that are not immediately apparent. This author needs a good editor, not just for the grammar but to verify facts. Still, it's fascinating for the layperson or anyone with a smattering of a background. Humans and chimpanzees share 98.5 of their DNA; this fact alone should make the subject of primatology and evolution important to every one of us.
Rating:
Summary: Why are the majority of primatologists women?
Review: What impulse lures some women to abandon home and career for a harsh world studying primates in jungles? Carole Jahme's Beauty And The Beasts examines the psyche and methods of women who have pioneered primate studies, and who have followed Leakey's venture into the world of primatology, as field scientists. The intriguing question of why the majority of primatologists are women makes for added intrigue as chapters examine these women and their work.
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