Rating: 
Summary: Um...
Review: Ok, this book was really tough to read because it was so poorly written and didn't flow at all. The author brought up some good points but, he made alot of really really big leaps in logic that were kind of iffy. We had to read it for a college class and no one in my class liked it that much.
Rating: 
Summary: fascinating and controversial
Review: Homo sapiens are, as the title states, the Third Chimpanzee. Diamond's theme in this book is that humans are just one species among many; we make up just one small part of a large whole, which is the natural world. Through a historical context, Diamond creates a pallet with facts about the biology and evolution of humans. This book is written with power; presenting answers to the controversial questions of why humans, being the third species of ape, were able to conquer and dominate the earth while developing the high possibility of ending our short lived reign in disaster.
Diamond tells the story of the Third Chimpanzee in five parts. Part one methodologically recounts the most recent anthropological and genetic evidence of how humans possess a significantly close relationship with apes, such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. Interestingly put forward are the implications that humans and chimpanzees diverged from the ancestral line after gorillas did. Humans are similar in 98.4 percent of their DNA to chimpanzees; according to the evidence, the common chimpanzees are human's closest primate relative as opposed to the original thought of gorillas being more closely related to humans.
Part two handles the changes that occurred in the human life pattern from the expansive length of time from several million years ago to ten thousand years ago. The differences between chimpanzees and humans in life cycles, mate selection, sexuality, and the possibility in the ways in which these various factors could have effected the evolution of humans, are all concentrated on in this part of the book. Diamond uses the right amount of technical detail to place the reader on a platform of understanding that is needed to grasp the theories of human evolution and future that are proposed in this book.
Part Three of the book discusses the many cultural traits of humans and how we believe that those specific cultural traits are what detach us from other species, particularly those relatives closest to us. Spoken language, art, agriculture, and tool-based technology are a few examples of the "cultural hallmarks" Diamond instills as being distinguishing cultural traits that we are proud of, as opposed to the many others introduced in this book as being detrimental to the survival of the human race. These ugly cultural traits are chemical abuse, mass exterminations of numerous other species, the negative attributes of agriculture, genocide, among others.
The destructive qualities that humans posses, such as environmental degradation and warfare are told of in Part Five. To bring the book to a close the epilogue summarizes the story of the third chimpanzee, telling of what the future may bring with melancholic and hopeful views alike.
In the first section of the book, Diamond provides plenty of background information, facts, findings and evidence for his assertions. Many interesting stories that he told capture and entice the reader. He discussed the different theories of human skin color in reference to location. The most popular of the theories being that differences in skin color are adaptive. This means that the shade (light/dark) of skin color benefits the person according to the region; white skins (supposedly) more effectively produce vitamin D aiding in the prevention of rickets and osteoporosis, where as darker skins induce sunlight that in turn reduces the chances of developing skin cancer. Many more theories exist, yet the one that Diamond lays on the table for pondering is Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Darwin's sexual selection theory attributes the differences in skin color to our ancestor's matting according to their preferences. Diamonds entire discussion on skin color is vividly illustrated thru a conversation that he had had with a few New Guinea men about female attractiveness and how they found white women to be repulsive.
Agriculture is a main theme throughout the entire book. Diamond tends to consider the invention of agriculture as being a great catastrophe. It has its benefits tied with its destructive attributes. Diamond makes claims to agriculture as being the exact opposite of what many people grow up believing it to be; the cause of class differences, monstrous wars, and the deterioration of the length and quality of life.
The second half of the book is filled more with Diamond's own speculation about the evolution of human behaviors, missing in this section is the evidence, facts and various theories that he used in his writing at the beginning. For an example of the lightly supported claims, Diamond presents the reader with his argument that smoking is a human behavior that is linked to sexual selection. He goes on to explain that potential mates notice that the smoker is able to ingest the toxins and not have any apparent negative affects, thus making the smoker more sexually attractive (fitter and stronger). Diamond went wrong here by not providing any allowances for human tendencies toward trends in social behavior and addictiveness of tobacco.
Diamond addresses questions about human development that are fascinating and controversial; from DNA drift, paleolinguistics, to the settlement of the Americas. There is some notice to Diamond's position and inflexibility on certain topics, of which are lacking supportive technical details. In all, even with its weaknesses, this well-written, interesting book explores human evolution and our relationship to our closest living primate.
Rating: 
Summary: Exposing the Dark Side of Human Beings and Civilization
Review: Having just read Guns Germs and Steel, I couldn't wait to read the "prequel" The Third Chimpanzee. Jared Diamond has illuminated our origins and our history with a lightening bolt of insight. He writes so readably that he can draw us through even our propensity for genocide without losing us. He adds two and two so carefully and persuasively that we are forced to accept his conclusions as inevitable. They have the brilliant simplicity of the truth, as unpleasant as that may be. Humans have been producing art and moving toward civilization since the "great leap forward" that propelled us beyond our chimp cousins. We have been using our tools and talents against the environment and each other for just as long. Monuments and Massacres are us. As I have long said, we are a bad lot. Diamond manages to remain optomistic none-the-less. Perhaps the communication revolution will enable us to see our "enemies" as human and we will stop short of wiping them out. Maybe we will finally understand that if we destroy the environment we also destroy ourselves. I too am an optomist, but reading the current headlines, I am wondering if perhaps Diamond was more right about us than he knew.
Rating:
Summary: great piece of work
Review: Having read Guns Germs and Steel a few monthos ago, i thought i would be ineteresting to pick up a copy of the Third Chimpanzee which is considered to be a prequel to Guns Germs and Steel. Overall, it looks at over all human behaviours and history helping to explain humanity at the present. Diamond does an excellent job describing human evolution out of Africa into other parts of the world and the different species of primates that played a role in this process. He goes further into describing how human behaviours such as sexuality, how humans pick partners and manage sexual relations. He also looks at things that make humans distincly human such as language and art. He compares these accomplishments to animals and questions the benefits of some such as agriculture and condemns others such as drug/alcohal use. He further goes into detail about the conquest of certain peoples by other people and how humans cultures have hurt their own progres making species extinct and making certain great civilization decline over time. Overall, this is a good complement to Guns Germs and Stee.
Rating:
Summary: Why we are the way we are!
Review: I recently finished the book, The Third Chimpanzee, by Jared Diamond, which I was thoroughly impressed by. After reading the prologue in I was inspired to write this letter.
The main theme or understanding I am coming away with from the prologue in Chimpanzee is having a better understanding of how we as humans have evolved into what we are today. It is frightening to contemplate the possibility of our species self-destructing, and causing our own extinction. Even though most people think we are all so unique from each other and believe that whatever race, gender, they are born with, and whatever religion, beliefs, or ideologies they are taught are the correct ones. Many seem to think people in other places in the world are somehow screwed up or wrong with their beliefs. When in reality I believe most if not all of the hatred in this world is based on ignorance of others. This ignorance of one another throughout our planet is what could cause our destruction.
This book has given me a better understanding on the continual evolution of our species compared to other species. Also has helped me understand the differences we think we have really aren't so big. How the prejudices we have are inaccurate and wrong. How not only how similar we are to one another, but how similar to the other life forms on this planet.
I don't believe making bigger and more dangerous bombs and wasting any country's wealth on weapons of mass destruction. This type of thinking just creates a continual escalation of hatred between countries and peoples of this planet. If countries would spend those monies instead to teach all how truly co-dependent and important all species are to one another. Carl Sagan said in Cosmos, "our passion for knowledge is our tool for survival". To me this quote is what could save us from ourselves, education is the key. There must be a way to promote education of factual information globally, but how? People need to learn a true understanding of how we aren't so different from one another. How we really have almost every thing in common with one another. People need to have compassion, a degree of tolerance, and a better understanding of others customs, beliefs, ideologies, and religions. The problems being not just with any particular country, but the whole planet. Since 9-11 there seems to be a bigger division throughout the world. Since that day the most commonly used phrase I have seen and heard in this country have been "God Bless America", it should be" God Bless The World".
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I picked this up from the bookstore after reading Guns, Germs, and Steel earlier this year. I expected another book that was well written, where the author could explain the material to a novice on this subject like myself. I was not disappointed. How did humans become human, and how did we evolve so differently so quickly from our primate relatives? Those are the questions he tries to answer in this book. Readers of GG&S will be familiar with a couple of the chapters in this book that touch on the same subject matter. However, don't let that stop you from looking at this book. Diamond looks at many aspects of humanity-both good (art, language) and bad (drug abuse, murder/genocide, destruction of environment) and tries to figure out how they developed or where they came from. I particularly enjoyed his treatment of language developement as well as his discussion of murder and genocide. We are not as different from animals as I thought regarding those topics. Plus, he explains everything very well. I had no problems following his logic or explanations. I would recommend this book for all to read.
Rating:
Summary: Anthro for everyone
Review: Well, now that I've read this, I'm running right out and grabbing a copy of GUNS, GERMS, and STEEL. From an anthropological perspective, this book is solid, well-researched and well thought-out, and from my particular anthropological perspective, it's brilliant. From the layperson's point of view, it's brain candy and a pure joy to read. It's anthropology for everyone, even professionals in the field who hate books like that. Diamond's theories are far-reaching, and many of his insights are at the same time pure genius and simple common sense. Much of the book seems like "anthropological guesswork," yet he backs up most of what he says. EVERYTHING he says is worth thinking about, so it's well worth your while to buy this book. Don't borrow it; you'll want to highlight.
Rating:
Summary: Diamonds are a readers best friend
Review: it is pleasant to read books from Jared Diamond. This is a splendid book too. One is regognizing his professions, but he although has good ideas about topics, he is not a professional.
He gave me interest in birds. I am interested in languages and I read with great attention the chapter about this topic.
I think, the similarity of the different pidgin-languages comes from the fact that they want to describe the same world with the same objects with properties and methods. Similar to programming language where the same cunstroctors and logical elements appear.
So the syntax of S-V-O comes from the fact that a speakers begins from himself and speaks or deals with the object and the verb is the connection between both.
So it would be interesting to know how some peoples come to some positions like S-O-V or O-S-V.
Diamonds theory is a good explanation of the fact that childrens learn some properties of a language easier then others.
One can become addicted to books from Diamond. What could it mean? Is Diamond dangerous?
Rating:
Summary: Gun, Germs, and Steel: The Prequel - Read It !
Review: Jared Diamond combines an almost limitless range of interests - including evolutionary biology, physiology, ornithology, geography, ancient history, anthropology, music, art, literature - and an equally prodigious number of gifts - not the least of which is his penetrating logic, extraordinary ideational fluency, pellucid writing style, and, thankfully, a marvelously open sense of humor. This has all come together in a remarkable trilogy of books culminating in the celebrated Guns, Germs, and Steel. Reading Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee, you can clearly see his formidable mind (recognized by the MacArthur Foundation, which in our day and age of credentials and certifications, makes "genius" semi-official) at work, pushing his materials to the point where he needed to write GG&S to scratch a particular itch that arose in the researching and writing of Chimpanzee. We humans, Diamond observes at the outset of TTC, share 98 percent of our genetic material with two species of chimpanzees, making us, to an objective observer, merely a third species of chimp. But, oh, do the remaining two percent account for a load: speech, writing, art, culture, and a particularly human proclivity to destroy each other and the things we love, either via fratricidal, often genocidal, war or the degradation of our own environment. Having placed these observations on the table, Diamond then goes on, in gemlike chapters that stand alone as models in the scientific essay genre, to discuss animal and primate precursors of these particularly human behaviors, taking us through the bounty of human developments and the accompanying tragedies. He ends, however, on a hopeful note. Not only are we, as Nietzsche pointed out, "the ape that blushes," but also, as Diamond reminds us, the ape that chooses its own future. The net result of Diamond's learned exertions is to render us - me - feeling far more connected to "the animal kingdom," to offer compelling food for thought, and to answer the great questions posed in the title of the fabulous Gauguin picture hanging in a Boston gallery: "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? We Are We Going?" This is all necessary reading, a scholarly comfort book from one of our most brilliant expositors of evolutionary logic. (And, I should add, happily, that this trilogy will soon be a tetralogy: having addressed the rise of civilizations in GG&S, Diamond is now at work on civilizational, or state, collapse. Something exciting to look forward to.) For a much less hopeful variation on the themes of TTC, see Wrangham and Petersen's Demonic Males, which, like Diamond, documents redundantly the many ways in which we are merely a species of chimpanzees, but which focuses on the manifold facets of higher primate violence inherited by - or imprinted into - homo sapiens sapiens. Another necessary 5-star book.
Rating:
Summary: A work of genus
Review: This book is about man, the animal, and what makes him similar and what makes him different from other animals, especially his cousins, two species of chimpanzee. The book spreads itself across many fields: evolution, sex, language and arts, geography, war, and environment The author postulates that man was just a third species of chimpanzee until about 40,000 years ago when he made a "great leap forward" to become a chattering, tool-using animal who came to dominate the world. Why that great leap forward took place is unknowable, but the author speculates that the development of language was the catalyst. "The Third Chimpanzee" is written in a light style with lots of intriguing speculations and theories mixed amongst the facts. The author leads with that most fascinating of subjects - sex - and spends about 50 pages examining the sex lives of man and his primate relatives in voyeuristic detail. After hooking the reader on sex, the author goes on to more prosaic topics such as the spread of Indo-European languages, the geographical factors that influence history, and even a bit of speculation about intelligent life in the universe. The most serious notes in the book come toward the end when he takes up genocide and environmental disaster. I like this book. For those of us who think that linguistics is served with clam sauce this is a digestible taste of science.
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