Idk if y'all knew this, but humans evolved from a common ancestor with chimpanzees.

Unlike Guns, Germs and Steel, this book seems to me to have no central thesis, Jared wanted to talk about everything that make us human (Genes, sex, war, art, language, ...).

He tried to trace every human behavior to its animal origins:
Humans have a language? Vervet monkeys too.
Humans use drugs ? Just like peacocks.
Humans commit genocides? Chimps too.
Humans make art? Elephants too.

Except the vervet monkey language which may be valid (an earlier stage of our own language), I guess that the other animal origins of human traits are just speculations)

The last 3 chapters of the book are a warning message about the status of our environement. He said that the current extinction rate of animal species is higher than normal (natural rate), and that by killig animals and clearing trees we put our lives and the lives of the next generation at risk.
In this I agree with Jared 100%.

The best chapter I read was the one on genocide, I was shocked reading about the history of genocides, we have a bloody history and we are a blood-thirsty species.

I originally read this book (not this edition, GR wont let me CHOOSE the edition I own) back at uni. It was good, complex and informative.

This time I listening to the audiobook (which GR won't let me choose unless I switch from the paperback) it is well narrated.





Whatever Goodreads is doing at the moment is #%$^& annoying; I originally read this book in an edition it refuses to admit exists. I am now listening to the audiobook version; but apparently I can't review a paperback and audiobook separately, I can only choose one. Not the one I have, because according to GR there were only 20 publications in 1991 and none of them were in English *eye roll* Not even any point in giving them feedback as they clearly dont give a rats.

Book is in serious need of an update. It’s age is definitely showing and if anything recent advancements substantiate the claims made even further.

…Small bands [of “uncontacted” peoples]…continue to turn up. But at some point within the early twenty-first century, we can expect the last first contact, and the end of the last separate experiment at designing human society…that last first contact won’t mean the end of cultural diversity…but the shift from isolated groups to global population does mean a drastic loss of [some types] of diversity. That loss is to be mourned…

Reading this ARC copy of Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee (for young people) was an interesting and informative read. Having read other works by Diamond I was a little worried about the level that this book might be written and while the text is simple it is hardly simplistic. This YA adaption reflects well on Diamond and its adapter Rebecca Stefoff. Like many of Diamond’s other works this title is a manifesto of sorts of what has gone awry in our environment and how it might be corrected that is unburdened by the day-to-day politics (both academic and legislative/electoral) that tend to get in the way of any sort of reasoned discussion about climate and environmental change. The work is challenging, balanced and engaging and pitched perfectly for YA readers. To prove that last point I will add that I left this copy sitting out on the coffee table at our house and my middle school son picked it up to read and asked if he could have it when I was finished. My copy goes to him tonight and I am looking forward to talking about it with him. Perhaps The Third Chimpanzee (for young people) will help him and his generation better understand the state of our world (and the sad condition of our closest kin in the animal world) and guide them to fix the mess we are in.

Where do we come from? Why do we think we are the best on the planet? Could we still be the best if we had proof of living beings in other planets? What happened to evolution in certain aspects of our lives like language? All these are question that have been answered by Jared in this book. You will think scientifically, Historically, and linguistically when you read this book.

Hopefully this won’t come as too much of a surprise, but you better sit down just in case … humans (including you and I) are animals. Humans are the mammalian relatives of dogs, cats, porpoises, chipmunks and walruses. More specifically, we share a common ancestor with the great apes with whom we also share much of our DNA (98.4% of our DNA is identical to that found in chimpanzees). If it weren’t for a few important differences found in the remaining 1.6% (from which we’ve evolved language and tool use) we could very well be classified as a third chimpanzee (along with the common and pygmy varieties).

Because we are animals, many of the behaviors found in humans can also be found in the animal kingdom. Certain animal species form bonded pairs, care for their offspring, act aggressively towards strangers, and feature a social hierarchy, just as humans do. Although animal corollaries exist, Diamond argues that there are two behaviors common in humans that are found to a much lesser degree in the animal world, those being: the killing of members of our own species and the tendency to destroy our environment.

These are the two topics that Jared Diamond (noted author, polymath, and UCLA professor) seeks to explore in The Rise And Fall Of The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal:
-tWhat are the genetic, physical, cognitive, behavioral and evolutionary differences that make humans both unique and similar to other animal species?
-tWhat is it about humans that make them predisposed to destroy each other and the ecosystems upon which they rely for survival?
Evolution lies at the heart of each of these questions and Diamond explores the evolutionary pressures that led to these human characteristics.

Diamond has a nice writing style that makes these concepts interesting and understandable without oversimplifying the subject matter. Anyone who is interested in human evolution will find the book to be of interest. He also introduces two important topics (that of: why cultures develop at different rates, and why cultures collapse) that he fleshes out in more detail his later excellent books Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse respectively.

Diamond is pessimistic as to humanity’s ability to exist in harmony with nature and this conclusion is supported by the historic record. Whenever humans are introduced into a new environment, extinctions of large animals invariably results. Moas, giant sloths, mammoths and the dodo disappeared in the geological blink of an eye upon encountering the most destructive of earth’s species … and the trend has only accelerated as the human population has ballooned. It’s really only a matter of time before a cascade of negative environmental consequences begins from which collapse is the inevitable result. Perhaps it’s already underway.

With regards to the book I will raise two points:
1.tIt’s worth keeping in mind that many of the ideas Diamond presents are speculative. Neither skin color, language, nor sexual behavior leave evidence in the fossil record. Thus when Diamond discusses the evolution of these characteristics, he is presenting a hypothesis for which no direct evidence exists. He can draw correlations with other species that we are able to study directly, but ultimately these questions have yet to be conclusively answered (and may never be).
2.tThe book was originally published in 1997 and this 3rd edition was published in 2006, but like with other fast moving scientific fields, that of anthropology has proceeded beyond Diamond’s knowledge at the time of his writing. By way of a few examples, his description of hominid evolution fails to mention Homo floresiensis, Homo denisova or Homo naledi. Genome sequencing was not a mature technology in 1997 so he also was not aware that Neanderthal-derived DNA accounts for an estimated 1–4% of the Eurasian genome and others.

It is hard to believe that humans have the same ancetor with chimps especially when you're from a religious society where creationism have to explain everything  . But evidence of progression of our bodies throughout 7 millions years of evolution from ape-like creatures, to bipedal erectus, hunters gatherers in the Safana, slowly to sapiens able to make sophisticated tools, domesticate animals and hybridyse plants, communicate through language and writing and art, are not just a beautiful story to tell but happens to be true.
It was an easy mission to understand the biological process of humain evolution and the implication of our origin in every aspect of our social behaviour. The first chapters were softly comprehensible. But as long as I went through the book, things were getting harder.
The rise of verbal communication and the diversity of human language were the most overwhelming parts. I have never been good at history or geography but Jared made it worth to try. Now I can say that every spoken word have a story of at least 40 000 years, and that the first spoken word was the lane to the rise of culture and technology. The latter, which progress is astonishingly fast, will lead our fall. Vanishing, as diamond said, is the peril that humanity going to pay for beeing so cruel with its origin: animals and nature
Finally, I heard someone said :""الانسان حيوان اذا اقتعت بذلك فانت قرد و ان لم تقتنع فانت حمار" :D

Excellent. I'm giving it four stars instead of five only because from the vantage of 2014 its age shows, mainly in the absence of some information learned since it was written about the Neanderthals and the similar but then-unknown Denisovan people - specifically, the presence of small amounts of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in the modern human gene pool - and in the absence of that knowledge, the author makes some assumptions about our history with those other peoples that are incomplete at best; but the book is impressive in its accurate anticipation of the situations of the present and probable future.

The title is based on our very close genetic links with the two species normally called chimpanzees, i.e. the 'common' chimp and what Diamond calls the pigmy chimp, normally referred to now as the bonobo. Any other species as closely related to those two as we are would be recognized as simply a third type of chimpanzee by naturalists, hence the title.

But this book is not only about our species, but about the environments that have shaped us and how we in turn began shaping the rest of the natural world, usually unintentionally but no less powerfully, once our numbers and technology made that possible, starting with humankind's probable role in the mass extinctions of large animals wherever we showed up and continuing through today's problems of climate change, overfishing and -hunting, introduction of invasive species, and habitat encroachment. The threat of nuclear war is in there, but Diamond accurately predicted that it would become less likely as the catastrophic consequences of environmental devastation grew more visible and irreversible.

Informative, thought-provoking, often funny - I recommend this strongly to anyone interested in human history and prehistory and our relationships with the places and the other life forms on our planet.

At first one may be unimpressed by Diamond's unassuming style, but it will soon become apparent that as always he's tackling some of our history's most important and tough questions. How monogamous are we really? Why do we prefer to have sex in private? Who were the people who brought proto Indo European language to Europe, and how do we know that?

The chapter on languages alone could be a book into itself very much worth reading...

Love this author.

So close to the chimpanzee, so far evolved from them in a negative way: genocides, war and extermination of species.

Most significant read if you want to understand where we are coming from and how we have handled other and our own species.

Not sure if this ever comes right!

A nicely researched and well explained book.
The book discusses various issues in human evolution and social evolution and tries to explain how man evolved to what he is and what chances does he have to continue to survive.

Most of the issues in the book I have read in other books (one by the same author)

It is a matter of timing. If this would be my first book on the subject I would consider it an amazing book and praise it. However I have read a few books and most of the information in this book I have read in other books.