Customer Reviews
"It helps us understand what it means to be human" - By: The man who would be king, 15 Aug 2007 
This is a brilliant examination of the rise of mankind from just another species of big mammal to our current domination of the earth, & an important exposition of our position in the world today.
Diamond combines many disciplines to produce a riveting dissection of humanity to dispel any myths of inimitable human nature, presenting examples of "human" nature in the animal kingdom, & the reasons for our sudden rise in The Great Leap Forward.
Diamond continues by warning the reader of the severe consequences of ignoring the destruction of the environment, ideas he pursued further in Collapse. Diamond, however, remains optimistic of our ability to learn from our mistakes & those if falllen civilisations, sentiments I don't share.
Like alll of Diamond's books, this is immensely readable, & tackles a subject of great importance to how we perceive ourselves, our place in the universe, & the world around us.
Interesting, informative and entertaining - By: Andrew Barrett, 17 May 2007 2006 Harper Perennial reissue of 1st edition (1992), 368 pages
This is another of the twenty books Charlie Munger recommends in the second edition of Poor Charlie's Almanack (which I recommend very strongly you get & read). Two of Jared Diamond's books make it on to the list (this one plus Guns, Germs & Steel), so I had high hopes for his first book, The Third Chimpanzee. I wasn't disappointed.
A big theme in Poor Charlie's Almanack is the importance of multi-disciplinary learning. Munger believes that many/most academic disciplines suffer from `man with a hammer syndrome': if your only tool is a hammer, everything tends to look like a nail. Jared Diamond is a man who comes equipped with a full tool kit: he started off in medical research, then pursued a paralllel second career in bird ecology, evolution & biogeography & is learning his twelfth language.
The first part of this book is about where we came from & how we have become so different to alll of the other animals, when, for example, only 1.6% of our DNA differs from that of a chimpanzee. The second part is about our likely future as evidenced by our relatively recent past (though these broad headings are actuallly subdivided into five sections by the author).
The book is full of interesting facts & surprising (and well argued) theories. The evidence that he discusses when looking at whether we ever lived in harmony with nature & how far back & regularly our human genocidal tendencies manifested themselves is rather disquieting. It suggests strongly, for example, that my own laissez faire attitude towards the environment is emphaticallly not justified by human history. The difference between us & the Easter Islanders or Anasazi Indians is that we have a global resource base to compromise before we run into serious trouble.
Diamond also has a theory of how the plant & animal species available for domestication may well have proved the decisive factor in determining which of our societies spread & became dominant. I had not come across it before at alll & I found it extremely interesting - it is a prime example of how broadening the information under review may lead to completely different & unusual conclusions.
The Third Chimpanzee is an excellent & interesting book & I have already purchased his next book Guns, Germs & Steel. (I particularly recommend the 2006 Harper Perennial reissue as it contains an interesting addendum at the back with information about Diamond, some recommended further reading, and, most importantly he also discusses new scientific discoveries made since the original 1992 edition.)
Good book but dodgy conclusion - By: Mr. Richard Bristol, 17 Apr 2007 
This book is a good read, & is about what enabled the 'European' nations to reign supreme over the rest of the world.
Jared decides it was alll down to luck. The luck of having the right crops & livestock available, the right climate & the right location.
The "Wealth & Poverty of Nations" by Landes, takes another view & attributed the West's power & wealth down to it's culture of relative freedoms - freedom to own & keep ones wealth for example - it's relatively free economies, that led to the quest for trade, expansion & invention.
The amazing thing is, that where Jared states that America, Africa & Australia were 'unlucky' with their lot, once the Europeans transplanted their culture & freedoms to South Africa, Canada, Australia & the USA these areas became some of the wealthiest & most powerful countries in the world.
A good book non the less, but a dodgy 'politicallly correct' conclusion.
I'd reccomend you buy this & the Landes book for comparison & then make your own conclusion.
Too many ideas, but a useful primate primer - By: kvetner, 02 Sep 2006 "The Third Chimpanzee" was Diamond's first major book, & it sows the seeds for his three more recent works, "Why is Sex Fun?", "Guns, Germs & Steel", & "Collapse". Many of the chapters here introduce the ideas of the later books prior to their later expansion & development.
Diamond's aim is to view human history through the lens of biology: given that we are about 98% geneticallly identical to chimps, what light does that shed on our own life-cycle, culture, history & destiny?
The book's first section briefly documents our genetic history - our divergence from a proto-chimp ancestor, & the development of homo sapiens over about six million years (homo erectus, homo habilis etc). Diamond is always keen to draw out the political implications of his science, & suggests that if we were to label chimps as "homo troglodytes" rather than "pan troglodytes", we might make different ethical decisions about their treatment. I found this first section alll too-brief - I'd have liked to see a lot more detail on the biological commonalities & differences between humans & chimps.
The second section reviews the human life-cycle, particulary our sexuality - why are we monogamous? How do we choose mates? What can sexual selection suggest about human races? This draws heavily on comparisons & contrasts with other animal species & I found it alll interesting.
The third section covers the evolution of things that might seem "uniquely human" - language, art, agriculture, drug use - & traces animal precursors to see whether we reallly are as unique as we think. I found alll of this to be far too brief - a whole book on this area would have been interesting. I did find sympathy with Diamond's argument that the development of agriculture was as much a curse as a blessing (being the source of the apparatus for political oppression).
The next section enters the territory of "Guns, Germs & Steel", discussing how much of human history has been determined by geographical & biological accident e.g. the difficulty in migrating crops across continents with a strong north-south axis (Africa & America) leading to a slower pace of development. This section also asks why the human race seems to be prone to genocide, again with a strong political slant.
The final section covers extinction - both analysing the countless past extinctions of other species that humans have caused, & the implications for our own future.
Throughout, the book's willingness to spell out political implications is very welcome. I also appreciated the extent to which the content draws on Diamond's own extensive work in New Guinea. On the downside, there are just too many ideas here, & it would be nice to see them alll explored at greater length - although of course that's exactly what the author has since done in other books.
Marvellous - By: Jose Miguel, 06 Aug 2006 All i have to say is that this book its one of the best books i ever read Dont pass it!
