Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence [Hardcover]

Dale Peterson (Author), Richard Wrangham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 1996

Whatever their virtues, men are more violent than women. Why do men kill, rape, and wage war, and what can we do about it? Demonic Males offers startling new answers to these questions. Drawing on the latest discoveries about human evolution and about our closest living relatives, the great apes, the book unfolds a compelling argument that the secrets of a peaceful society may well be, first, a sharing of power between males and females, and second, a high level and variety of sexual activity, both homosexual and heterosexual. Dramatic, vivid, and sometimes shocking, but firmly grounded in meticulous scientific research, Demonic Males will stir controversy and debate. It will be required reading for anyone concerned about the spiral of violence undermining human society.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you harbor a sneaking suspicion that men are a herd of ignoble savages, then this book is for you. Authors Wrangham and Peterson will confirm your instincts. It turns out that hyperviolent social behavior is deeply rooted in male human genes and common among our closest male primate relatives. Rapes, beatings and killings are as much a part of life among the great apes as they are among us. The authors try to conclude on some upbeat notes that ring hollow, but their science reveals much about the dark side of human nature.

From Publishers Weekly

Contradicting the common belief that chimpanzees in the wild are gentle creatures, Harvard anthropologist Wrangham and science writer Peterson have witnessed, since 1971, male African chimpanzees carry out rape, border raids, brutal beatings and warfare among rival territorial gangs. In a startling, beautifully written, riveting, provocative inquiry, they suggest that chimpanzee-like violence preceded and paved the way for human warfare?which would make modern humans the dazed survivors of a continuous, five-million-year habit of lethal aggression. They buttress their thesis with an examination of the ubiquitous rape among orangutans, gorilla infanticide and male-initiated violence and hyenas' territorial feuds, drawing parallels to the lethal raiding among the Yanomamo people of Brazil's Amazon forests and other so-called primitive tribes, as well as to modern "civilized" mass slaughter. In their analysis, patriotism ("stripped to its essence... male defense of the community") breeds aggression, yet, from an evolutionary standpoint, they reject the presumed inevitability of male violence and male dominance over women.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; First Edition edition (October 3, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395690013
• ISBN-13: 978-0395690017
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #673,490 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book is Epic, October 17, 2001

By 

M. Johnson (CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Paperback)

This is among the best books I have read. I originally heard Wrangham on an NPR show discussing some facets of this book & quickly sought it out. It provides an excellent evolutionary background and discussions of humans' closest relatives- especially our closest, the chimpanzee and bonobo, whose life patterns are distinctly different from one another and provide some insight into human behavior and possibilities. The book is very well-written and highly readable regardless of a reader's background on the topic.
I had to write after reading some of the negative reviews and misinformation on the book- especially the first editorial review. The book is hardly as dark and disillusioning as it leads one to believe- quite the contrary. I finished the book a few months ago and am still pondering it. Highly recommended!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ape Within Us, October 16, 1998

By 

William McKeeman (Hollis, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Paperback)

Wrangham presents some fundamental insights. Why do female gorillas stay close to their reigning silverback? Because only he can protect their babies from being killed by other silverbacks. Why do adolescent male chimpanzees intimidate every female in their group? So the youngersters will not be refused when it comes time for sex. Why do bonobos, physically similar to chimpanzees, behave in a much less violent manner? Because they evolved in a place where there were no gorillas to preempt an important food source. There are two kinds of male orang-utans, small ones that must rape to reproduce and large one that have no such need. These, and other insights, are carefully reasoned from the most recent field data. Perhaps not all of his explanations of ape behavior will stand the test of time but each of them is interesting and worth further research. The reader, male and female, is challenged into introspection: how much of the modern apes lies within our modern selves?

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Start., August 26, 2001

By 

yanipoo - See all my reviews

This review is from: Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Paperback)

Demonic People This book is part of the new anthropological topic: The study of maleness. Although part of the premise is based on evolutionary-biology, this book squarely places a foot in the cultural anthropology camp where the manifestation of violence has to do with the structure of society. This no doubt will get the hard line evolution biologists and the hard line cultural anthropologist in a collective huff. The first part of the book is a good overview of where humans fit into the evolution tree. For those who learnt about the great apes and our relation to them before genetics proved that chimps are more closely related to humans, than gorillas and chimpanzees. This section is a good way to catch up on the newest evolution theories. Mixed into this section is a comparison of the offensive warfare of humans and chimps. The second part of the book, takes us into the jungles of African and Indonesia, and discusses the different kinds of violence that manifest between Orangutans, Gorillas, and Chimps due to their social structure. For example: Orangutans practice rape, Gorillas practice infanticide, and Chimps on the most part practice battering, but a mixture of all three does prevail. Then the third part of the book, discusses the behavior of a ¡§recently¡¨ discovered fifth species of great apes, the Bonobos. This species formerly believed to be chimpanzees, are the only peaceful society among the five great apes. T he authors posits that because of the sexual nature of these beasts and the practice of lesbian relationships between the females create a special bond and female centered power structure. Male violence is easily stamped out by female coalitions and thus violence is not a good reproductive strategy and through time has been weaned out of the bonobos society as well as genetic make up. From this, the thesis is human violence can be stamped out if females in our society gains more power and we as a society finds a different criteria outside of strong physical males as an ideal mate. Unfortunately, the authors then go onto a long spiel about human¡¦s relation to paradise in comparative literature. Which brings the book and its theories to its weakest point. I found it terrible disappointing that the authors would find a hardly read novel about a female centered society written in Victorian times to prop up their argument. However, with the 20 pages of oddball ranting aside. This book definitely is an interesting read on cultural implications of evolution and vice versa. And just a damn good read for those who are interested violence, in maleness, or primate behavior but find acedemic papers heavy going. It¡¦s definitely the first full length book on this topic and hopefully other better researched, better defined studies will come out of it. It¡¦s very much a manifesto of sorts, filled with funny and interesting anecdotes, such as orangutans practices oral sex, bonobos had to be taken out of zoos because of their promiscuity that upset grandparents, and less scientific than most academics would like.