Almost Chimpanzee: Searching for What Makes Us Human, in Rainforests, Labs, Sanctuaries, and Zoos [Hardcover]

Cohen gives a lot of information here. From genetics to language studies he really covers a lot of ground. What's unfortunate is that he retreads many topics that have already been done extensively and he doesn't do it particularly well. However, for people new to primatology or just looking for a quick bit of info, this is a good starting point. It is far from the best overview of primatology, though that's to be expected since Cohen has only passing familiarity with the subject. Cohen's experience with apes is limited to a few interviews and several well-planned vacations over the course of a couple years. Everything that he did to research this book, you could do too given the resources.

The problem with this book is not so much the information included, as the tone with which it is presented. Taking a cue from Fox News, Cohen repeatedly tells the reader how fair and balanced he is. Cohen notes in his introduction that while other books about chimpanzees are motivated by some overriding goal, he "has no agenda". This would be impressive if it were true, but Cohen most certainly does have an agenda and it imposes itself on the way he presents what he sees to be the facts. When he agrees with a position, he presents it as rational and normal. However, when he disagrees, the pages seethe with derision. This method does little to present the facts and more to flavor the reader's impressions. For this reason alone, it's hard to recommend this book as it is certainly an opinionated look at the subject.

Another problematic aspect of Cohen's overall tone is his need to repeatedly note that he is bringing topics down to a level that any reader could understand. This is a strange tactic as Cohen has no more experience or training in primatology than your average zoo visitor. Also, Cohen addresses primatologists as if they did not understand the entirety of their own discipline (he notes that if one studies wild populations, they don't know about lab research, which is a ridiculous and unsupportable contention). This attitude does little to further a reader's understanding of the topic as much as it promotes Jon Cohen and his 'superior' intellect. In many ways, this book reads as a bit of long winded self-promotion for Cohen himself.

Lastly, this book has no conclusion and no recommendation for fixes to what Cohen seems to see as a broken situation. He talks about apes in biomedical research but yet stops just short of endorsing it while deriding animal rights activists. He notes the need to look for the differences between humans and apes in contradiction to Jane Goodall's call for a look to our similarities, yet does not say how this should be accomplished. He talks about the difficulties of conservation and the bleak outlook for wild ape populations, yet still he does not offer more than an ambivalent shrug in response.

It is easy for Cohen to critique a discipline that he has no real connection to. Yet, instead of taking the opportunity to offer an outsider's view of how to find progress, he makes no calls for any action or further thinking. Cohen's conclusion is nonexistent. Rather than try to put forward something positive (read:constructive), he seems more intent on negatively portraying the viewpoints he doesn't agree with.

If you're looking for a quick reference that is slightly more focused than a wikipedia article, this may work. However, don't take it too seriously and only use it as a first step towards some real scholarship on primatology. There's much more information out there that is presented with much less editorializing.

Support scientists, not science writers.

This book represents a remarkable achievement. Cohen manages to review all the major current areas of research in chimpanzee studies, something no other book has hitherto attempted to do. What's more, he does this in his easy-to-read, catchy style - he is a well known science writer - which swings the reader along from page to page. We learn as we go along. There is a lot happening in the world of our closest living relatives. It's an area of enquiry that has burgeoned from its early beginnings with the works of Robert Yerkes, author of "Almost Human" published in 1925. Cohen nicely counters the idea that chimps are almost human with a series of telling chapters that show that chimpanzees, while almost human in the sense that they are our nearest relatives in the animal kingdom, are not at all human in a number of ways, just as we humans are not chimpanzees.
Cohen looks at chimps in their natural habitats, across Africa. He visits many of the sites where chimp research is going on and interviews the fieldworkers he finds out there. From this we see the chimpanzee as a distinct species, living a complex social life and communicating in ways we are only just beginning to understand. He moves into the area of language studies, showing that chimps cannot learn human language, and why should they? They have their own system of communication that baffles us. As he shows, the heroic efforts of psychologists to teach chimpanzees human language have only served to underline their distinct nature as another, very intelligent species, sensitive and with feelings and emotions like our own, but nevertheless not human.
He is at home in the field of genetics, exploring why the numerically small difference in the genomes of humans and chimps is realized in the emergence of two very distinct species. Page after page is crammed with facts. This book could serve as a textbook for undergrads, indeed it would get them to the heart of many a complex problem in less time than conventional text books do. For the general reader it offers deep insights into the story of the search for an AIDS vaccine, a billion dollar failure of human medical science. He writes about the genetics of speech and the crucial differences between humans and chimpanzees which enable us to speak where chimps fail.
All the writing is done by reference to the people behind the science. Cohen has visited more chimp scientists than I've had hot dinners. He has talked to them, asked them key questions, faithfully recorded what they had to say. It all comes out, including the many, many differences of opinion between competing researchers. The dirty washing hangs out alongside the clean. The chimps are named too, a long roll-call of famous individuals. Their plight in the wild is spotlit, together with those who have tried and are trying to save them from extinction.
All in all this is a great book and should in my opinion be given a science book prize. There is nothing like it out there, with Cohen's unique combination of scientific accuracy and easy style.

Vernon Reynolds (Oxford, UK)

ALMOST CHIMPANZEE: SEARCHING FOR WHAT MAKES US HUMAN, IN RAINFORESTS, LABS, SANCTUARIES, AND ZOOS offers a fine exploration of what researchers are doing in the field of genetics in state-of-the-art labs, in the field, and working with chimps. From zoo exhibit designs to an attempt to breed a humanzee, this offers insights into chimps, humanity, and more, challenging myths and offering an insider's tour of the latest research insights. No natural history holding should be without!