The woman who devoted her life to studying chimps in Africa looks back on her life, from her early love of animals and an adolescent crush on her minister to her years in the bush observing primates and often sacrificing life's more stable pleasures. Reprint.

One of the most important books ever written about our connection to the natural world, GORILLAS IN THE MIST is the riveting account of Dian Fossey's thirteen years in a remote African rain forest with the greatest of the great apes. Fossey's extraordinary efforts to ensure the future of the rain forest and its remaining mountain gorillas are captured in her own words and in candid photographs of this fascinating endangered species. As only she could, Fossey combined her personal adventure story with groundbreaking scientific reporting in an unforgettable portrait of one of our closest primate relatives. Although Fossey's work ended tragically in her murder, GORILLAS IN THE MIST remains an invaluable testament to one of the longest-running field studies of primates and reveals her undying passion for her subject.

The Great Apes tells of the evolution, social customs, complex lifestyles and natural habitats of man's closest relatives. A visual celebration of these great creatures, the book contains over 100 full color photographs. The authors also concern themselves with the human activities (many illegal) and assaults that are endangering the very survival of the species. Features in natural history, photography and travel publications.

Jane Goodall’s account of her life among the wild chimpanzees of Gombe is one of the most enthralling stories of animal behavior ever written. Her adventure began when the famous anthropologist Louis Leakey suggested that a long-term study of chimpanzees in the wild might shed light on the behavior of our Stone Age ancestors. Accompanied by only her mother and her African assistants, she set up camp in the remote Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in Tanzania. For months the project seemed hopeless; out in the jungle from dawn until dark, she had but fleeting glimpses of frightened animals. At last came the day when she was accepted and no longer feared. She was able to record previously unknown behavior, such as the use—and even the making—of tools, until then believed to be an exclusive skill of man. As she came to know the chimps as individuals, she deciphered their complicated social hierarchy, their rituals, and many other extraordinary behaviors, which have forever changed our understanding of the profound connection between humans and chimpanzees. In the Shadow of Man is “one of the Western world’s great scientific achievements” (Stephen Jay Gould) and a vivid, essential journey of discovery for each new generation of readers.

An in-depth biography of Jane Goodall describes how the seminal scientist and naturalist revolutionized the study of primates through her years of study of the chimpanzees of Gombe, helped establish radical new standards and a new intellectual style in the study of animal behavior, and how her work inevitably led to her career as an activist. Reprint.

Looks at Ofir Drori's organization, Last Great Ape, which has been instrumental in stopping poaching, trafficking, and cruelty to animals in Cameroon.

A fascinating glimpse into the life of the author who established communication with chimpanzees through sign language details his rise to the pinnacle of scientific success and his campaign for animal rights, and presents a moving account of friendship, bravery, and humanity. Reprint.

Few animals interest us as much as our relatives the great apes, and among these primates orangutans have a special appeal. The orangutan ("man of the forest" in the Malay language) is highly intelligent, creating and using tools in the wild, solving problems and puzzles in captivity--and manipulating symbols in a way that makes some scientists suspect that this fellow creature might someday master language. A natural history of orangutans by one of the world's foremost researchers on the species, this book provides an introduction that is at once engagingly accessible and in-depth. Here readers will encounter orangutans, the only great apes in Asia, in their ever-shrinking habitat, the rain forests of Sumatra, Indonesia, and Borneo. This book delves into their history, their habits, their endangered status, and what studies--many conducted by the author himself--have told us about how orangutans learn, think, and feel.