Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Paperback)

~ Dale Peterson (Author), Richard Wrangham Professor (Author) "YOU WILL BE KILLED!" the man at the Burundian embassy in Kampala said, in a bizarrely cheerful voice, as he stamped our visas..." (more)
Key Phrases: rainforest apes, woodland apes, lethal raiding, South Seas, Herman Melville, Jane Goodall (more...)

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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (November 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395877431
• ISBN-13: 978-0395877432
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #177,111 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This shouldn't be your first book on evolutionary psychology, October 18, 1999

By	Robert B. Howland (Henrietta, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Don't misunderstand. This book has a lot of interesting information about apes. But when the authors try to extrapolate human behavior from ape behavior, they blow it. If you want to learn about human evolutionary psychology, try "The Adapted Mind" by Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby or "The Moral Animal" by Wright. If you're trying to understand the evolutionary origins of human violence, read "Homicide" by Wilson and Daly. If you want to learn about chimpanzees, bonobos and other primates, start reading de Waal. And if you want to understand just why nature is so nasty, read "The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins. After you've read those, you may be able to correctly interpret this book, but after all that, why bother.

The authors leave out a bunch of important information. There is no mention or analysis of Hamilton's inclusive fitness theory, Triver's reciprocal altruism theory or Axelrod's computer simulations of Triver's theory. The authors point out that homo sapiens is a patriarchal species, but fail to mention that, specieswide, women are much more sensitive than men to the socioeconomic status of their prospective mates and, unlike men, their sensitivity is directly proportional to their own status. (see "The Evolution of Desire" by Buss.) They never mention that, unlike the other apes and 97% of mammalian species, human males provide significant investment in their offspring, making husbands vulnerable to cuckoldry, which sometimes necessitates violent precautions and responses by the husbands and their genetic kin. The authors gloss over the critical importance of fitness variance within the male and female genders and differences between these two variances. The authors mention that, like orangutans, male elephant seals commit rape, but fail to mention that with the help of the females, about 5% of the males do about 80% of the breeding, increasing the odds of the other males' genetic death. They attribute the peaceful nature of bonobo society to massed female power but, unlike de Waal, fail to mention that males may accept this because females' extreme promiscuity thoroughly obscures paternity and almost certainly shrinks both male fitness variance and the difference in variance between males and females. And they reduce sperm competition to a footnote.

The book has the tone of a feminist propaganda piece. The authors repeatedly attribute violent male behavior to stable and internal factors while attributing violent female behavior to external factors. (For a different view, see "When She was Bad" by Pearson.) They adopt a narrow definition of violence which makes men look bad and women look good. (The most general definition of violence is: Individual A is violent toward individual B if (1) A gains, (2) B loses, and (3) B cannot keep A from controlling if and how the transaction occurs.) And unlike most books written by professional social scientists, this book uses the vocabulary of morality to describe issues of gain and loss. But morality is simply a methodology and set of rules to manipulate, modify and control other people's behavior, in other words, a mechanism for doing violence to its victims. That's why feminists virtually always cast women's self-interest as universal moral imperatives.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is not for evolutionary psychologists, April 4, 2001

By	"finkadelic-com" (Santa Monica, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Critiquing this book from the vantage point of evolutionary psychology is like a present day aeronautical engineer critiquing the feasibility of DaVinci's helicopter specs. This is a popular book that makes a very important speculation about the possible origins of human violence. None of the negative reviewers mention the important and politically impartial hypothesis put forward by the authors that ape communities with abundant resources are less violent than those with limited resources. Also, there is nothing wrong with the feminist community rallying around this book. This book isn't about taking away male power, it is about mitigating all violence.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top Book! Unputdownable Read! Get it Now!, February 14, 2002

By	Peter Jenkins "peja13" (Auckland New Zealand) - See all my reviews

Excellent and scholarly book, parts of which will annoy the politically correct no end. Takes the myth of cultural relativism, examines it in the light of known facts and data, and then comprehensively stomps on it...
Has 30 pages of notes and another 30 odd of references, plus is strewn with footnotes - but dont worry, it is nothing like as dry and academic as that implies, this is a surprisingly easy read. It is just that it is also very thoroughly researched, and provides ample data to support the authors hypotheses and suggested solutiuons which are at times of a controversial nature. Not all of it is controversial by any means, there is as much here to delight the politically correct as there is to offend :-) Thats the joy of it, you know that these guys (and yes, both authors are male) are taking a balanced and fearless look into the depths of the problem of violence.
The field of sociobiology that this book delves into is an exciting and growing area of science that promises some real and lasting solutions to some of our more pressing problems. And when combined with these authors' insights from primatology and anthropology, then we have some powerful tools to enhance the world for all.