• The Third Chimpanzee

  • The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal
  • By: Jared Diamond
  • Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
  • Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,557 ratings)

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The Third Chimpanzee  By  cover art

The Third Chimpanzee

By: Jared Diamond
Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
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Publisher's summary

The Development of an Extraordinary Species....

We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet - having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art - while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins?

In this fascinating, provocative, passionate, funny, endlessly entertaining work, renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world...and the means to irrevocably destroy it.

©2006 Jared Diamond (P)2012 Random House Audio

What listeners say about The Third Chimpanzee

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Up to the usual high standard

Jared Diamond is one of my favourite writers, and in 'Guns Germs and Steel' and then 'Collapse' he transformed my views of the history and future of civilisation, respectively.

This is an earlier book (1991), containing themes to be expanded in both of his later books, in addition to the main topic; how modern man emerged from being just another animal.

Because the book is 20 years old, you always worry that some more recent evidence may have arisen to strengthen or weaken his arguments, but if you can ignore this relatively minor qualm, and you enjoy popular science, then this is an absolutely fantastic listen.

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33 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A book that will get you talking...

The Third Chimpanzee was first published in 1992 although the audio version dates 10 years after publication. It is important to take note of this fact as even prof. Jared Diamond might have changed his mind on some things he wrote in the book.

One thing I found very peculiar when I listened to the book, was his side-line comment that South Africa is one of the countries that runs the real risk of genocide. I only understood his pessimism after I realised that in 1992 things really looked bleak in South Africa.

The reason I highlight the above-mentioned point, is that there might be quite a few things that he says, especially predictions that he makes that are already dated and might feel very dark and pessimistic, while he really tries to advocate a positive approach to the future of homo sapiens on this planet.

Diamond begins with the story of the evolution of humans. He describes what makes us genetically different and where we fit into the evolutionary chain. He proposes an intriguing idea, namely, that the two chimpanzee species are genetically nearer to humans than to other apes. They should according to him be classified under the homo genus.

This can be seen as the starting point of a lot of issues that he raises with ethics as the thin line that motivates each of his subject matter discussions.

The book is structured as follows: 1) Part 1 ??? Just another big species of mammal. 2) Part 2 ??? A animal with a strange life cycle. 3) Part 3 ??? Uniquely human. 4) Part 4 ??? World Conquerors. 5) Part 5 ??? Reversing our Progress overnight.

I found especially Part 1-3 fascinating. Ideas like, ???the evolution of genes does not explain human progress??? and ???Neanderthals dying at the age of 30-35 and how homo sapiens??? life cycle adapted to ensure further aging??? are just mesmerising. Part 4 and 5 became more sober and even doomsday-like. Especially in part 5 we hear Diamond???s emotional language. He doesn???t beat around the bush about the way we do things today that might cause destruction.

This book contains a vast array of subject-matter starting with evolution and ending in the dangerous human. It is well-structured and mostly well thought through. Yet some ideas might have gathered some dust since the book was published in 1992. However this is the type of book that gets people to talk and reflect on the world around them. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Rob Shapiro???s reading of the book is fair and easy to follow.

I think Diamond???s book is worth the listen and raises important topics that need to be taken seriously by any listener of the audio book. This book will probably get you talking about what matters.

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26 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Very Compelling

A very compelling listen.

The story sucked me in and I found myself listening much longer than I had meant to several times.

Fascinating topic that is well researched, backed up with logical thought, and presented in a fashion that is easy for an non expert to understand.

If you have any interest in evolution and the effects that it had on making who we are now, I would highly suggest this book to you.

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Finally on Audible! Awesome Book.

Any additional comments?

A good book by Diamond finally on Audible. This covers some familiar topics like those in his books Collapse and Steel, Guns and Germs. It traces human's rise, spread across the planet and effects on species and environment (worse than you think). It also discusses clashing cultures (Europeans vs natives) and how genocide is a repeating behavior of human cultures. Chimpanzees exhibit similar behaviors. As the name implies, we are the third ape. Great narrator. The author frankly states a sad truth: many species have gone extinct since the rise of humans and there are many more to go (and a lot sooner than we'd like to admit.) And of course our population is out stripping the earths resources (which is rather obvious.)

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15 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Exceptional piece from an intellectual omnivore.

This is but one of many fantastic books that reveal Jared Diamond's omnivorous intellect. Like the others, he has a message, and that message is conveyed through researched arguments and tempered by his own experiences. The message is: We stand at the edge of change, one way leading to disaster of a scale that could mean destruction of the human species, but there is hope.

Hope lies in recognising our special past and understanding how it has led us to where the human animal is now. By understanding this past, learning lessons from those who have come before us, we can understand where our choices will lead our species and the only planet we inhabit.

Topics include what makes us unique among animals and what, after careful investigation, reveals to be not unique. Language, sex, art, culture, agriculture, natural selection, sexual selection; the list is a smorgasbord of informative research.

Not a good book for those with closed minds, nor for those who are blinkered by dogma or literal translations of holy texts. However, for those of us who are willing to listen, willing to challenge old ideas, this book illustrates the many disciplines that, when woven together, show us hope for the future.

Shapiro's voice bring these topics to life, enhancing the character found in Jared's work, revealing the importance of the author's words and his heartfelt appeal to us all.

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13 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

1992 really?

As a huge Jared Diamond fan I had probably unconsciously made my mind up about this book before I read a single page. It is an older book, and that was particularly irksome to me at several points when I thought to myself "I could have learned and known all this in 1992". If you have read other works by Jared Diamond there is some overlap. The beginnings of 'Guns germs and steel" as well as 'Collapse' are here. Those ideas each get about a chapter and a half toward the end. For some that may be repetitive, but there is plenty not covered in his other other books, such as the genetics of aging and mate selection. The narration is great, nothing to distract from the book itself. Bottom line if you like Jared Diamond you won't be disappointed.

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11 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
  • MM
  • 11-02-12

Jumping too quickly to conclusions

I was really interested in reading/listening to a book about how evolutionary biology explains current human behavior... I think this book does address the topic but I wished it organized the supporting data more clearly and was less glib about the conclusions reached.

It is clear the author is well versed in the topic. However his extrapolations seemed rather extreme at times - in one case going from an example of a friend he has to a statement regarding general mate selection preference for all humans...

It could be that his general conclusions are well supported in other studies he did not cite or cited elsewhere in the book, but the way the material is presented made the conclusions seem very capricious… As a result, reading the book feels very uncomfortable as I feel a lot of facts are missing...

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating & Thought Provoking

I remember picking up this book when it first came out years ago. I was instantly captivated. It really is a first run at some of his later works (Guns Germs and Steel is pretty much covered in the first couple of chapters, likewise you can see the ideas behind his book Collapse). Therefore if you have read GGS a lot of this book will be familiar to you, but this is not abridged and not narrated in a monotone!

This book does have an environmental leaning, which I believe upset another reviewer, but it also covers evolutionary biology, ornithology, geography, agriculture, ancient history, anthropology, music, art, literature, sexual anthropology, xenophobia, physiology, and the development of language (my favourite section). The many and varied topics in this book are dealt with in a very easy to understand manner. Some of his theories are a tad far fetched, but most are just so brilliant, and his insights explained so clearly it is easy to get caught up with his expositions.

I was surprised that I did not notice the lack of the maps and other graphics. Like the printed book I did find the first 2/3rds of the book is the best.

I did wish the narration could have been a bit more varied. However, the narration was clear.

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7 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Diamond's books are wonderful

I love Jared Diamond's writing. Every time I read one of his books, it resonates so clearly that I can't help but enjoy his thoughts tremendously. In The Third Chimpanzee, Diamond ranges widely in his thoughts of this odd third chimpanzee (us) and sometimes goes in rather unexpected places.

Some highlights include how testes correlate with number of partners in sex and how public/private sex is, and the arts are a social method of sexual selection.

The migration of some of human kind can be studied by the transformation of proto-Indo-European language, but he includes a fervent discussion of the loss of human languages as the few powerful languages consolidate their power and their populations on the world.

He includes wonderful comments on genocide in chimps and genocide in humans across time. How we have permission to kill "them," but we must attempt to refrain from killing "us."

Most disjointed was his theories of life on other worlds, which covers a part of a chapter.

What is most interesting is the echoes of his other writings you can hear in this book. Echoes in the sense that it doesn't matter if the book came before or after this 2006 publication. His themes have remained constant: Ecological collapse, success of an area and the people controlling that area based on resources, and domesticate-able plant and animal species.

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5 people found this helpful

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  • S.
  • 06-23-12

Bleeding Heart book on Evolution

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I think this is only the second book I quit listening to before it's over in 10 years. The author is a bleed heart activist, who seems to prefer homo cro-magnon to homo sapien. His goal wasn't to teach us about evolution but instead to convert us into chimp lovers and depressed humans. The tone was overall sadness about the way homo sapiens treated Neanderthals, large mammals, and more recently chimpanzees. He spends a lot of time discussing our homo sapien short comings and likens zoos to prisons instead of teaching about evolution and past. I didn't finish the book, and never will. I've listened to at least 5 other books on evolution that were all science, good books. I'd even recommend the Modern Scholar lecture series. But I don't recommend this book for people interested in evolution. There's nothing new in the book, and the tone is bent.

Would you ever listen to anything by Jared Diamond again?

No

Which scene was your favorite?

Naked Human's in a Zoo... reminded me of a cartoon strip I liked.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

None

Any additional comments?

There is nothing new in this book, makes we wonder how long ago it was written.

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4 people found this helpful