The Third Chimpanzee

It's taken me a while to get through another book. The previous book I read was Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. This guys has written several books in the same field, and since I found it fairly interesting, I picked up another one. The Third Chimpanzee was actually written back in 1993, many years before Guns, Germs, and Steel. I'll admit this book took me quite a while to get through. I checked out the book from the library, and from looking at my original receipt (which I always use as a bookmark), I had gotten the book way back on March 23. So we are talking about a good two months to get through the book.

The premise of the book is this: human are most commonly related to chimpanzees, of which there are two species in existence. Our genes vary by only TWO PERCENT from chimps, yet we are obviously vastly different from our evolutionary relative. So what about that two percent makes us different? What about us is so unique? Dr. Diamond sets out to understand the traits that make humans "special." Along the way he tackles a wide variety of biological, as well as cultural traits. Probably a lot of them, most people wouldn't consider important (certain sexual features). Others are things we take for granted (art, cooperation, communication).

It's a fairly complex subject. If anything it hints at the nuisances of evolution. Some traits we only share with our closest relatives. Others we share with the strangest of creatures (did you know some ants also practice agriculture and animal domestication?). It illustrates that the evolution of some traits depend a lot on the context and history of a species as well as the contemporary situation that they're in. Another important conclusion is that humans are not unique in our uniqueness. It's just the specific set of circumstances and timeline of events that led to our current stature in the world.

As a read, it's so-so. I think coming off of his other book; I was a bit fatigued with his writing style. Diamond sticks very well to the structure of an introduction, supporting information, summary, which often leads to a feeling of redundancy. Also, a book about human traits, which includes analysis of mass murder and genocide, environmental pollution, cannot exclude some highly opinionated statements. I think he keeps it in check, but just barely. Some of the dire circumstances he wrote about in 1993 would be interesting to see how bad it actually is, now, 20 years later.

I originally planned to read his follow up to Guns, Germs, and Steel; a book called Collapse, which is about what causes societies to fail. But I think I may take a break from some of this social analysis. I've been meaning to read the book "Lone Survivor." I haven't seen the movie specifically because I've heard it's better to read the book first. Hopefully it won't take me a full month.