In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of In the Shadow of Man
Book Review: Observation is the key to all the doors of knowledge
Summary: 5 Stars
The pleasure that Ms. Goodall had placed and received in sharing her life with chimpanzees is conveyed effortlessly in this book and touches you quite easily. I started reading this book not being to sure about what I was doing, since to know about the habits of these primates is not exactly among my list of favorite topics. So I just started browsing and before I knew it, sixty or eighty pages had gone by as well as my possibilities of getting up early in the morning. The author will guide your through the complex social structures in which chimpanzees live to the very detailed and amazing details of their everyday life. For example that they would eat gladly a human baby if given the chance. But more important she makes you care for their lives not as a consequence of a higher scientific purpose, but simply because the more that we relate to nature the more we are embraced in its blessings.
Book Review: SHE IS AN AMAZING WOMAN
Summary: 4 Stars
I read this book for a class I took - a class in Anthropology. It created in me a new form of respect for our not so distant cousins - the chimpanzees. Jane Goodall is an amazing woman who in my eyes defied tradition - having gone into this study without a real education in it, she put her heart and her soul into the study of Chimpanzees in the Gombe. It in fact became her life. Her love for nature is evident throughout this book - she even nicknamed her son 'Grub' - I believe he has another name, but with all due respect I like the name 'Grub' a lot. This book shows how after watching the chimpanzees, Goodall learned how to be a mother. The similarities between these cousins of ours and us is truely amazing. For me this shed new light on the theory of evolution, and even some that didn't believe in evolution began to question it after they read Goodal's book. I quite enjoyed reading 'In the Shadow of Man' and intend on reading more of her works.Book Review: Shadow of Man Review
Summary: 3 Stars
The book In the Shadow of Man I found in the begginig to kind of boring. Just because the book was kind of slow moving at first. It talked a little bit about her childhood, and how she got to Africa. I didn't find it very exciting then. I wanted to get right to the action. Then in the middle of the book it got really exciting, because Jane Goodall talks about how she finally got to have some real interactions with the chimps, instead of them always running away from her, and keeping a safe distance. Also how she would feed them bannanas, and she gets married and things like that. So the rest of the book from the middle on I found prettie interesting and exciting. And if you like animals and are ok with a boring beggining to a book, but an exciting middle and finish, then I would reccomend this book to you. I liked it a little bit, but it wasn't my favorite book, but that's just me. Check it out for yourself, and see what you think!Book Review: Super-de-duper!
Summary: 5 Stars
Like another reviewer, I'm an anthropology student and I had to read this book for a class I'm taking. Never has a book, meant for education, made me both laugh and cry out loud. It was simply wonderful. You will learn a lot about chimpanzees, and I promiss you will never watch them in the zoo, in the same way, again. Even if you are not looking to learn about chimpanzee developement and behavior, the book is excellent on a purely entertainment level. Even though this book is was a required reading, I was so impressed that I'm going out to buy her other books... just out of interest.Book Review: This is behavioral science done correctly
Summary: 5 Stars
Jane Goodall is a unique undividual whose work should be studied by those who think that the animal rights people don't have a clue. Her efforts at gaining the trust of chimpanzee's in their natural habitat have spauned a host of up-and-comers who will continue to carry her work to the next level.Goodall distinguished herself by sitting in the bush on a daily basis until the local chimpanzee tribal members came close enough to make physical contact with her. That an English woman scientist would journey to Tanzania to engage in this type of research is unusual and certainly puts her at "the top of her class".
She follows the lives and behavior patterns of her subjects until her research sounds like a Michener novel with its generational emphasis and timelines of family heritage. Within this effort she follows each subsequent offspring through each of their successive cycles from birth and death.
What is fascinating is how she describes personality differences, the kind that come from hard-coded genetic diffences, the same as we find in human individuals. The mating behavior sounds like something out of "Cosmopolitan". The squabbles and fighting behavior could be that of any large Homo Sapien family. While Chimp's aren't on the same intellectual level as humans they certainly come closer than any other species. Jane Goodall deserves every accolade she gets for bringing us a lens through which to observe another geneological line of a species that has developed from our common ancestors.
Her work suggests that we should rethink our medical research toward more humane treatment of these animals whose behavior is too similar to ours to ignore. This is an excellent book.