Jonny Harman 2005-09-01
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
After reading Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" I became hooked on the subject of global history and evolution. Consequently, I couldn't wait to get my hands on "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee". Diamond's writing is not only extremely interesting, it is interest-shaping, and I was not disappointed with this second highly compulsive read. For those who have read GG&S, I can say that both books compliment one another nicely. The Rise & Fall covers similar themes - expanding on many, and opening the way for GG&S to cover many others. Anyone who enjoyed one book will surely enjoy the other.
To begin with, Diamond first examines the fact that we share more than 98 per cent of our genes with chimps, and so he concludes that by the rules of zoology we are in fact a third species of chimp. He then proceeds with his thesis, setting out to examine what it is in our genes that accounts for our dramatic rise and makes us so exceptionally different to chimps and all other animals. Much of his discussion examines the following proposition: There must be animal precedents in the things that we like to feel make us human (including tools, art, language, and plant and animal domestication) - as well as in some less positive things (murder, genocide, habitat destruction) - for such a small difference in genes to have gone such a long way. Accordingly, there is much to fascinate people who enjoy reading about some of the wonderful oddities and curiosities belonging to the human and animal kingdom, as Diamond considers the precedents and precursors of these attributes in animals, and then traces their rise in Cro-Magnon man. In the final chapters he then puts all this together to give a chilling prognosis of the way we may soon prove our own undoing, but although this is inevitably less scientific and more conjecture than the preceding chapters, Diamond is careful to observe where fact does become opinion (and where theories are not necessarily widely accepted), and so I felt that his conclusion was quite relevant.
I have said that his writing is extremely interesting. Another thing that I like about his work is the fact that he draws a lot from his own adventures in Papua New Guinea; that he writes from a broad intellectual base (referring to many sciences and their findings as he puts a massive puzzle together to construct very plausible arguments); but at the same time he is not above using even childish humour ('fart' comes from the Proto-Indo-European word, 'perd', one reads). People who like reading about the origins of Homo sapiens will also perhaps be fascinated by an in-depth discussion on the relative phallus size of the various apes (cleavage size is covered too), and on the implications pertaining to our own place along the scale. In short, I found "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee" to be another highly interesting, factual, educational and compulsive read.
