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

Dale Peterson (Author), Richard Wrangham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 14, 1997

Whatever their virtues, men are more violent than women. Why do men kill, rape, and wage war, and what can we do about it? Drawing on the latest discoveries about human evolution and about our closest living relatives, the great apes, Demonic Males offers some startling new answers. Dramatic, vivid, and firmly grounded in meticulous research, this book will change the way you see the world. As the San Francisco Chronicle said, it "dares to dig for the roots of a contentious and complicated subject that makes up much of our daily news."

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (November 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395877431
• ISBN-13: 978-0395877432
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #20 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Animals > Apes & Monkeys

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars humans are bellicose apes January 22, 2011

By Shane Levine

Format:Paperback

Fact: human males are extremely violent. Fact: our ape relatives are similarly extremely violent. Highly plausible: humans, along with our ape cousins, have a strong evolutionary disposition towards violence. This prospect is troubling, a tough pill for many people to swallow. Yet the data on ape behavior that are beautifully presented in this book, a simple consideration of the savagely violent nature of human history (and prehistory), as well as the many psychological studies that reveal how quickly humans form hostile coalitions (in some studies due to a coin toss), combine to make the idea that humans are evolutionarily violent difficult to ignore. The primate data also strongly challenge the notion that humans are violent because their culture has made them violent. If violence is based on "culture," then why are all the other apes so violent? And why has essentially every human culture ever documented exhibited patriarchy and male violence? The far more parsimonious explanation is that humans have a long evolutionary history of violence in which violent behavior led to reproductive benefits. The pacifists got killed or out-competed by their pugnacious peers.

OK, but why did evolution choose violence? Why was violence necessary? Demonic males explains this question well. There is a broad trend among mammals for males to be the more violent of the two sexes. This is because males can have a gigantic number of offspring. All a male needs to do is have sex. Women, on the other hand, need to grow the child inside them, so their reproductive prospects are much more limited. This leads to ferocious competition between males in the rat-race to reproduce as much as possible.... Yet Demonic Males explains that "violence" isn't simply a general purpose behavioral imperative that resides within all apes. Rather, each species of ape (as well as every other violent animal) uses aggression and violence in different ways that are appropriate to its context. Case in point: bonobos. In bonobo societies, females form alliances that effectively stop males from abusing females. The males are still violent, and there is still violence between different groups, yet female alliances have greatly reduced the male violence that rages within and without chimpanzee groups. A similar process has occurred in human history: the advent of democracy. In both instances, power has been diffused from elite individuals to many members of society, which reduces the violence that ape elites inevitably use when there is no effective resistance. In this light, Demonic Males offers hope. Yes, we have a violent nature--but it is not set in stone. Circumstances alter behavior, and humans have the intelligence to alter their circumstances for the better.

I disagree with most of the reviewers that say the authors extrapolate too liberally. In most cases they make sound generalizations. The Emotional Brain by Joseph Ledoux argues that emotional mechanisms are conserved across species. Considering how closely related we are to the other apes, there is definitely a strong case to be made for similar mechanisms creating violence in all the apes. They argue that neither apes nor humans act violently based on conscious calculation. Rather, we apes are guided by powerful emotional mechanisms that are designed to attain and preserve status. When status is threatened, or when it is up for grabs (or punches), the neural gears start turning and apes get violent. These emotions are geared towards achieving reproductive success, regardless of whether we are consciously thinking about reproduction. The authors label this emotion pride. Is pride even an emotion? It is probably a mixture of more elemental emotions, but they make a fine point. The Emotional Brain supports it on every level. The idea that nation states go to war due to pride is a bit more difficult to accept. They cite the Peloponnesian War as an example of this. But Thucydides himself says that fear is what made the war inevitable. I think fear plays an enormous role in large scale warfare as well as smaller acts of aggression. It is surprising that the authors didn't mention that. Nevertheless, this book is extremely insightful, well-written, and engaging. Definitely 5 stars. I recommend reading it in addition to War Before Civilization by Lawrence Keeley, which tells the frighteningly violent story of pre-civilized war.

And as a final note, this book definitely does not engage in "male bashing." The authors explicitly state that women play an essential role in male aggression, that is, by rewarding aggression with reproductive benefits. In some cases the agrressive male forces a woman to copulate, but in many other cases it is the woman who goes after the bad boy. This is so in modern human society, as well as in lion and gorilla groups--albiet in more extreme form--where marauding males who slaughter a female's cute little offspring often succeed in seducing the very same female. Thus, anyone who engages in male bashing simply does not understand the real ethological problem. Males don't consciously choose violence, and females aren't just passive victims of it. There is a larger force at work, which the authors of this book are well aware of. That force, of course, is evolution, which is the ultimate explanation for any act of violence. Luckily, we humans can distance ourselves from evolutionary constraints, but we can never be fully free from those constraints. We can mitigate violence, but, to the dismay of idealists everywhere, we will never eliminate it. Read more ›

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

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

By M. Johnson

Format: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!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

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

By William McKeeman

Format: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?

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars O heavenly bliss! Intelligence, truth, and coherence collides at once! August 13, 2007

By Seth Thomas

Format:Paperback

After spending some time postulating theories which might help explain the motives and actions of school shooters, I gathered a list of relevant keywords such as aggression, violence, hate, and male, (since all school shooters I know of have been male) I found myself drawn to a handful of books which I subsequently checked out from my local library. Among these books was a copy of Demonic Males, which I chose (thank God) to read first. I was not disappointed.

In this book Wrangham makes a careful academic study out of his theory that human males are inherently aggressive or demonic as he says, and that this trait is inextricably bound to our common ancestory with apes, and in particular, chimpanzees. He shows this by contrasting human and chimp behavior with other apes, and detailing the calculated murderous behavior exhibited by both species. The result is fascinating. Wrangham carefully shows that aggression is a behavior that evolved in chimps and humans because it enables males to attain a higher status, which in turn guarantees a high percentage of success when feeding and also passing down our genes by sexual reproduction. This search for status he says, to become the alpha male, is the driving desire behind every male, and I could not agree more. As a good example of an aggressive male myself, I confidently say that this desire for status is a primary occupation for all men, especially when they are placed in situations with other males. This, Wrangham asserts, and I also believe to be true, is always the case, regardless of whether the choice to seek a higher status is conscious or not.... On an interesting note, he connects (however not assertively or forcefully) that higher animal intelligence in humans and other apes allows the animal to anticipate more effectively, and therefore it can see an obvious advantage to eliminating other males and taking their females and territory (as in the case of chimps) and in the ability of humans to effectively use weapons to kill massive amounts of other people while potientially suffering very few casualties. But Wrangham is tactful on these points, since it would be out of step with current PC thought to assert that the smartest animals kill each other simply on the basis of genes. He is careful to give culturally determined influences their shared blame in this regard, which helps to avoid exonorating those who commit violent crimes.

This is what I find most admirable about the book. Though Wrangham is a born and bred ethologist, he avoids emphasizing the nature side of the nature/nurture debate. Rather he labels that debate as an error perpetuated by Galton, the man who coined the phrase nature versus nurture in the first place. Here the author allows that both biological and cultural factors have their respective and undeniable effects on our behavior, and carefully explains the error in choosing either extreme.

Regarding my interest in school shootings, this book together with chimpanzee politics is essential reading when trying to understand what I would call the more unconscious motives of school shooters, and perhaps even the reasons as to why other males often fail to react aggressively and violently in such situations, given the lean odds for survival and the lack of pre-formed coalitions due to benign competition for alpha male status in a classroom.

If I can derive such information from this book where school shootings are scarcely even mentioned (it was published in 1996 before most memorable shootings), then most any reader interested in the possible reasons for inherently male aggression will delight in the reading of this text. Truly, I cannot reccomend it enough. Read more ›