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Visions of Caliban: On Chimpanzees and People
A reevaluation of humankind's closest animal relative explores human perceptions of the chimpanzee and the reality of their life in the wild and in captivity
367 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
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June 27, 2015Let me confess to my heresies and now acknowledge the truth. Ptolemy didn't go far enough. It is the USA that is the centre of creation. Las Vegas its navel where the divine and human realms meet with Hollywood the beating heart. How else can I begin to understand this odd book?
A collaboration between Jane Goodall and Dale Peterson this is a book that goes off in all kinds of directions. At one point it seemed as though a person traumatised in a distant war had stumbled into our midst and poured out a weirdly unbalanced, skilful at the sentence level but amorphous tale of loss and sadness. In retrospect it reminds me of the tales of nervous students who focus on one word in an exam question and vomit up all they know over four sides of paper.
There's no direction, or structure, or purpose to the book as a whole. Each part is entire of its own and the whole is less than the sum of the parts. I had the sense that for Petersen there was a line between humans and other animals, but because chimpanzees and humans were so similar that they should be drawn through to our side of the line in terms of their legal status and how they were treated. Goodall by contrast at least in her maturity sees us all as part of one ecology
We begin with environmental change in Africa and the loss of habitat for the Great Apes. Then we move on to the export of Chimpanzees, which leads into the bulk of the book an extended ramble through the use of Chimpanzees in the US entertainment business, as pets and psychological props and in animal testing. None of this is at a structural level but on a case by case basis. Each case is weirdly fascinating, unpleasant - the Orang-utan in the second "Every Which Way but Lose" film was apparently clubbed to death before the completion of filming by its handlers - Hollywood animal training, at least according to this book allegedly consists of beating animals - I suppose regression to the mean is taken by the 'trainers' to imply that this is a successful education method. Chimpanzees in the entertainment business typically have their front teeth removed and are 'retired' by age eight on account of adult chimpanzees beginning considerably stronger than equivalently aged humans with multiple chimpanzees playing the part of a single animal over the years on particular shows. Peterson really sinks into the details - this isn't a book for the squeamish since being eaten is it turns out can be one of the least unpleasant of fates.
I had the uncomfortable feeling that for Petersen there was a line between humans and other animals and because they are so human like that the great apes ought to be brought across this line and afforded better treatment. Petersen was also I suspect more than half in love with all his stories. He makes clear that many of them were historic - for example apes used in animal testing are now largely bred in captivity rather than imported from Africa yet judging from the narrative as a whole even if there was no export of great apes from Africa their native populations would still be endangered while whether they are endangered or not has no relevance as to whether they should be treated well or not when working in the USA.
It does strike me that there is a unifying argument, although neither author explicitly makes it. At one point they are describing the plight of chimpanzees in Zaire that were kept, generally chained up by the roadside, in captivity back in the Mobutu days. My initial reaction was along the lines of 'come on, give those people a break, they probably have enough to deal with'. After a moment my thought shifted, there's no taking a break from yourself, the one and the other behaviours are symptomatic of the whole, and I suppose if the authors and the US embassy staff were more moved to intervene over the plight of the chimpanzees than the people that was a situation that perhaps they imagined they could make a difference in, although its own complexities emerged over time.
Petersen suggests no ways forward, and his story telling style suggests someone overwhelmed by the trees and having no sense of the forest. Goodall suggests that we shop more carefully and hopes that tourism will finance conservation without causing a bunch of new problems. Avoiding companies that contribute to the destruction of the environment, political violence in Africa or elsewhere, development that is centred more on the providers needs than on the recipients. I'm not sure that's so easy either what with obscure supply chains and apparent choice masking that one or two companies that might dominate any particular market segment, and once you start to take in to account labour practises, environmental degradation, agricultural mono-cultures, unsustainable farming practises, ecological disruption and so on I'm not sure there is much you can buy in good conscience. Aren't most hard problems simple but not easy?
A collaboration between Jane Goodall and Dale Peterson this is a book that goes off in all kinds of directions. At one point it seemed as though a person traumatised in a distant war had stumbled into our midst and poured out a weirdly unbalanced, skilful at the sentence level but amorphous tale of loss and sadness. In retrospect it reminds me of the tales of nervous students who focus on one word in an exam question and vomit up all they know over four sides of paper.
There's no direction, or structure, or purpose to the book as a whole. Each part is entire of its own and the whole is less than the sum of the parts. I had the sense that for Petersen there was a line between humans and other animals, but because chimpanzees and humans were so similar that they should be drawn through to our side of the line in terms of their legal status and how they were treated. Goodall by contrast at least in her maturity sees us all as part of one ecology
We begin with environmental change in Africa and the loss of habitat for the Great Apes. Then we move on to the export of Chimpanzees, which leads into the bulk of the book an extended ramble through the use of Chimpanzees in the US entertainment business, as pets and psychological props and in animal testing. None of this is at a structural level but on a case by case basis. Each case is weirdly fascinating, unpleasant - the Orang-utan in the second "Every Which Way but Lose" film was apparently clubbed to death before the completion of filming by its handlers - Hollywood animal training, at least according to this book allegedly consists of beating animals - I suppose regression to the mean is taken by the 'trainers' to imply that this is a successful education method. Chimpanzees in the entertainment business typically have their front teeth removed and are 'retired' by age eight on account of adult chimpanzees beginning considerably stronger than equivalently aged humans with multiple chimpanzees playing the part of a single animal over the years on particular shows. Peterson really sinks into the details - this isn't a book for the squeamish since being eaten is it turns out can be one of the least unpleasant of fates.
I had the uncomfortable feeling that for Petersen there was a line between humans and other animals and because they are so human like that the great apes ought to be brought across this line and afforded better treatment. Petersen was also I suspect more than half in love with all his stories. He makes clear that many of them were historic - for example apes used in animal testing are now largely bred in captivity rather than imported from Africa yet judging from the narrative as a whole even if there was no export of great apes from Africa their native populations would still be endangered while whether they are endangered or not has no relevance as to whether they should be treated well or not when working in the USA.
It does strike me that there is a unifying argument, although neither author explicitly makes it. At one point they are describing the plight of chimpanzees in Zaire that were kept, generally chained up by the roadside, in captivity back in the Mobutu days. My initial reaction was along the lines of 'come on, give those people a break, they probably have enough to deal with'. After a moment my thought shifted, there's no taking a break from yourself, the one and the other behaviours are symptomatic of the whole, and I suppose if the authors and the US embassy staff were more moved to intervene over the plight of the chimpanzees than the people that was a situation that perhaps they imagined they could make a difference in, although its own complexities emerged over time.
Petersen suggests no ways forward, and his story telling style suggests someone overwhelmed by the trees and having no sense of the forest. Goodall suggests that we shop more carefully and hopes that tourism will finance conservation without causing a bunch of new problems. Avoiding companies that contribute to the destruction of the environment, political violence in Africa or elsewhere, development that is centred more on the providers needs than on the recipients. I'm not sure that's so easy either what with obscure supply chains and apparent choice masking that one or two companies that might dominate any particular market segment, and once you start to take in to account labour practises, environmental degradation, agricultural mono-cultures, unsustainable farming practises, ecological disruption and so on I'm not sure there is much you can buy in good conscience. Aren't most hard problems simple but not easy?
October 11, 2012
"We share ninety-nine percent of our genes with chimpanzees, and our relations with them epitomize both our kinship with and our alienation from the rest of the natural world. In this groundbreaking book, a brilliant writer and a great scientists paint an extraordinary portrait of chimpanzees, humans, and our complex lives together since the 1600s, when chimpanzees first became known in Europe and William Shakespeare created Caliban, neither man nor beast but 'honored with a human shape.'
"This vision of Caliban is brought vividly to life by the authors' stories of their personal experiences with chimpanzees, in the wild and in captivity. The humanity of chimps is captured in accounts of their use of tools and medicinal plants, their sense of self, and their devotion to one another -- and sometimes to humans. Our inhumanity toward them is illustrated by chilling accounts of the international chimpanzee trade and of the abuse of chimps in medical research and entertainment. The poignancy of our relationship is revealed in tales of chimps raised as children by humans and then abandoned to laboratories or sent back to the wild, where they mush learn to be chimps again.
"With a cast of characters that ranges from Shakespeare to J. Fred Muggs, Visions of Caliban is a dramatic, entertaining, and affecting investigation of man's relationship to chimpanzees."
~~front flap
This was a very difficult book to read. Poignant, distressing, informative, enlightening. It wasn't what I was expecting at all, having been thrown off the scent by the second portion of the title: "On Chimpanzees and People." I don't know how to talk about this book, really. I came away with a much better idea of the real nature of chimpanzees, and also of their precarious balance on the brink of extinction -- due to the all-too-common causes of habitat destruction and overhunting. It came as a distinct shock to read about how we, in the United States (and other Western European nations) are actively involved in, and complicit in, the latter menace.
The book is very well written, researched and supported in minute detail. I recommend it -- it will broaden your outlook and open your eyes a bit further on how we think about the natural world, and our place in it and our relationship to it.
"This vision of Caliban is brought vividly to life by the authors' stories of their personal experiences with chimpanzees, in the wild and in captivity. The humanity of chimps is captured in accounts of their use of tools and medicinal plants, their sense of self, and their devotion to one another -- and sometimes to humans. Our inhumanity toward them is illustrated by chilling accounts of the international chimpanzee trade and of the abuse of chimps in medical research and entertainment. The poignancy of our relationship is revealed in tales of chimps raised as children by humans and then abandoned to laboratories or sent back to the wild, where they mush learn to be chimps again.
"With a cast of characters that ranges from Shakespeare to J. Fred Muggs, Visions of Caliban is a dramatic, entertaining, and affecting investigation of man's relationship to chimpanzees."
~~front flap
This was a very difficult book to read. Poignant, distressing, informative, enlightening. It wasn't what I was expecting at all, having been thrown off the scent by the second portion of the title: "On Chimpanzees and People." I don't know how to talk about this book, really. I came away with a much better idea of the real nature of chimpanzees, and also of their precarious balance on the brink of extinction -- due to the all-too-common causes of habitat destruction and overhunting. It came as a distinct shock to read about how we, in the United States (and other Western European nations) are actively involved in, and complicit in, the latter menace.
The book is very well written, researched and supported in minute detail. I recommend it -- it will broaden your outlook and open your eyes a bit further on how we think about the natural world, and our place in it and our relationship to it.
February 4, 2015
Chimpanzees, along with the other Great Apes, are rapidly diminishing in numbers due to human population growth and the consequent habitat destruction and hunting. The first and last chapters of Visions of Caliban summarize this crisis, but the main focus of the book is not on chimpanzees in the wild but on the mistreatment of captive chimps as pets, in the entertainment industry, in zoos, and in medical and psychological research.
The book, coauthored by chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall and nature writer Dale Peterson, uses Prospero and Caliban from Shakespeare's The Tempest as an organizing metaphor. The book is well documented, and much of what it describes is shocking and painful to read about; the authors make a good case that keeping chimpanzees in captivity for any reason is inherently cruel whether or not there is actual "abuse". They also show the complicity of the United States federal government agencies and the court system in protecting abuses of primates, and the watering down and evading of the CITES treaty.
The book was written in 1993, and a new afterword was added in 2000.
The book, coauthored by chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall and nature writer Dale Peterson, uses Prospero and Caliban from Shakespeare's The Tempest as an organizing metaphor. The book is well documented, and much of what it describes is shocking and painful to read about; the authors make a good case that keeping chimpanzees in captivity for any reason is inherently cruel whether or not there is actual "abuse". They also show the complicity of the United States federal government agencies and the court system in protecting abuses of primates, and the watering down and evading of the CITES treaty.
The book was written in 1993, and a new afterword was added in 2000.
October 15, 2008
Very well written. If you've read other Jane Goodall or chimp books (Next of Kin, Nim Chimpsky, Reason for Hope. etc.) it repeats alot of stories and information. However, it is very enlightening on subjects like the biomedical research system and the illegal animal trade. At times very disheartening and sad... makes you wonder where ethics have disappeared to.
December 31, 2007
A little technical at times, but a good background on the connection between humans and chimps.
June 15, 2009
Absolutely adored this book. Wondering blending of humanities and science to show a greater truth.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews