Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Vision
Review: Dr. Morris does a great job describing humans as we are. He clearly set aside all of our egocentric perspective and our "special" place in "creation". He undoubtly explains we are just another ape, a singular one , but finally apes. I really like his writing style, he is very clear in everything he explains and has lots of scientific evidence to support his ideas and perspective. This is a book I highly recommend to anyone interested in humans as the animals we are, just to know the zoologist perspective. A last warning must be made, this is not a recent book, it is a classic one (at least I consider it a classic) so if anyone is really interested in this subject a good advice is to try reading recent books to be updated.
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Summary: Plant this seed, sprout your own.M.F.00
Review: Dr. Morris has undoubtedly tasted the savorous fruits of truth. In despite of common cultures pliable "billboard society" rational, Desmond Morris has an enlightening vision of who "we" are. Wild by nature we are, however tamed we may appear. It is our redundant disipline which quarantines us from our true nature. "Our own arrogance is seperating us from that which we are, leading to our betrayal of our humaness."
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Summary: The Encyclopedia of the Human Animal.
Review: Having read this book in My early teens, some 26 years ago, I found it informative and detailed. Possibly it was too detailed. I would Highly recommend Morris' next outing that has recently been reissued after being out of print for many years,entitled "Intimate Behaviour". It seems to be a condensed version of naked ape, saving you from trying to digest vast text relating to zoology and anthropology.
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Summary: Read it twice, going for 3
Review: I am engaged in caustic, witty and verrry funny debate with a message board full of atheists, bible quoting fundamentalists, reformed bikers, nudists, deep thinkers and end-of-the-world screamers. Naked Ape is a great source of material for humanists. Hurry, hurry, send my copy. Sincerely, olafaye
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Summary: Good read and some fasinating information!
Review: I bought this book cheap second hand, and I'm surprised what a good purchase it was. This book is a basic beginners sort of guide into the world of anthropology/zoology but it is tailored to the average reader, and contains lots of interesting facts you may not already know about the animal kingdom, especially about the monkeys and apes. This book is bent towards the Darwinist theory of evolution, probably one of the most popular "scientific" theories people are taught today. Yet all this is still not much more than speculation, for there isn't ample concrete evidence to prove that this theory is true. Still, the question is : what if it is true? And if it is, then all these incredible things said in the book (I was very amused when reading the chapter about how and why human beings have nipples, lips, etc.) could be true! As I said - almost unbelievable, funny at times, and so fascinating! The book isn't overly lengthy at all, so its pretty short and sweet, but most of the general public will definitely learn at least one or two things after reading it.
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Summary: thenakedape
Review: i can't comment on the validity of the statements made in the book (so i wont), but as for the book itself, it doesn't take much to get into it, i naturally started by reading the sex chapter first, then started at the beginning and read the whole thing, and i found it very fascinating, as would most readers. I wouldn't say that someone who doesn't like to read would enjoy the book, but anyone (who likes reading) with the least interest in humanity would enjoy it. At the very least its an amusing book.
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Summary: Fantastic! Stimulating, thought-provoking and entertaining!
Review: I consider Desmond Morris to be the Carl Sagan of Ethology: The Naked Ape is highly concentrated brilliance... yet is easy to read and understand! In The Naked Ape, Dr. Morris gently peels back our species' self-importance and examines us as pure animal. He remains objective and concise at all times. It's hugely impacted my outlook on the human race, and I think it should be handed out free to students by the world's governments. Every chapter in this book gets 100% from me. If you enjoyed it, I reccomend The Human Zoo. But all of his books are to the same standard: the man is a genious!
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Summary: The truth about man: Like it or not
Review: I don't know if our imagination is a curse, or a gift, but I believe in many ways it clouds our vision, clouds us from the truth, and clouds us from reality. Desmond Morris brings us back to basics. He puts us at square one, and goes step by step through a journey explaining who we are, what we are, and how we got here. He lays down several theories, some plausible, some undeniable. The religious folk will not like what Desmond Morris has to say, and rightly so. He comes from a scientific standpoint, not the hopes and dreams that religious extremists have come to believe as "the truth". Clear your misconceptions about who you are, and what you are. You're a naked ape.
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Summary: Some material outdated, yet a unique approach to humans.
Review: I found the book fascinating because it forces you to look at human beings for what they really are. It gives you an objective approach to human behavior. Some of the material is outdated, but the format and approach of the book is refreshing.
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Summary: A modern classic that holds up well
Review: I have fond memories of this book. It was first published in 1967 and I read it pretty young; I'd have to reckon it among the more powerful influences of my youth. Controversial or not, there's something profoundly liberating about stepping back and looking at humankind as one species among others.And actually, it's still a darned good book. As Stephen Gaskin remarks somewhere in _This Season's People_, human beings are so intelligent and conscious that it's a matter of controversy whether we're the lowest of the angels or the highest of the primates. Well, the controversy hasn't dissipated since this book was written, but it's still every bit as important for us to recognize and accept the reality of our animal nature. For we _do_ have such a nature, no matter what view of evolution and/or creation we buy into. Evolutionary anthropologist Desmond Morris tends to treat us as though we have _only_ such a nature, as though our being an advanced ape is automatically at odds with our also being a fallen angel. That may or may not be true; I have my opinions on the subject, and you probably have yours. But we don't need to settle that issue in order to find this book immensely valuable. The most solid evidence we have continues to confirm that we have a close genetic kinship with the other primates and that, biologically, we are best treated as primates ourselves. Whatever else may be true of us, this much is about as close as anything in science ever comes to fully established fact. We can disagree about the precise mechanisms of evolution as much as we like; we can disagree about how much of our nature is really accounted for by this or that theory of evolution; but the one fact we can't get around on _any_ account is that as a matter of biology, we _are_ naked apes. We may be more than animals, but we are not less. That's what makes Morris's account so valuable. There just isn't a lot of question that our evolutionary history has shaped us to a very great degree, and Morris is awfully good at explaining how and why this is so. There may be details in need of modification -- after all, evolutionary theory hasn't stood still for the past thirty-five years and some of Morris's own theories were far from universal even then -- but the overall structure is sound. It's no surprise, of course, that this book was so controversial when it was first published; I'm not sure it would be all that much less controversial if it were published for the first time today. But boy, if you want to get a clear sense of what it _means_ for human beings to be primates, this is a great place to acquire it. And contrary to what your initial intuition may be, it _especially_ belongs on the reading list of folks who think human beings have a spiritual side too. Nobody ever made much spiritual advance by denying the hard facts of his or her biological nature and pretending to be a disembodied spirit.
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