Lemurs Legacy

by Robert Russell

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0874777143
• ISBN13: 9780874777147
• Release Date: May 1993
• Publisher: Tarcher
• Length: 274 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Book

Dr. Russell's book is an excellent review of evolutionary psychology ideas with respect to the subtitle of Power, Sex, and Love. It is impossible for an author to place more than an overview in such a short sampling of ideas. Dr. Russell did an excellent job of attempting to convey some very complex ideas in a mode and manner relevent to the reading level of a general audience. Those readers requiring a more in-depth portrayal of on-going research data have not experienced work in the field nor have an intimate appreciation of the complexities involved in comparative evolutionary criteria. Had Dr. Russell been more explicit about pristine biological imperatives, fewer readers would have had the ability to comprehend the subject mattter. I applaud his efforts at attempting to make a very complex idea accessible to those open-minded intelligent individuals who would not otherwise have had an opportunity to consider such ideas.

From the mother-daughter bond to the war system

This was published the same year as Matt Ridley's The Red Queen, and like The Red Queen is a classic in the relatively new science of evolutionary psychology. It is a little dated; for example Russell wasn't aware that altruism is advertising. We enhance our status and dominance in the society by appearing altruistic. See Zahavi, Amotz and Avishag. The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle (1997) for a more up to date presentation. And Russell's view of feminine sexuality is a little pollyannaish. He does not mention the now well-documented female strategy of cuckolding a mate for a reproductive liaison with what she perceives is an alpha male. See, e.g., Baker, Robin. Sperm Wars: The Science of Sex (1996) or Diamond, Jared. Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1997) for the sobering revelations. What sets this book apart from others is Russell's thorough discussion of the war system as practiced by primates, while his work with lemurs allows him to go back further in time for his speculations. His style, like Ridley's, is lively and very readable.Russell's premise is that we descended from lemurs (and from shrews before that) and that our psychology today can be better understood through an examination of lemur and other primate behavior. This really is the basis of evolutionary psychology, the idea that we can better understand ourselves by studying the behavior of animals that are genetically close to us, especially animals similar to ones in our ancestry. Russell makes a strong case for this point of view while gently dismissing psychoanalytic theories. He writes: "Freud made the mistake of ethnocentrism by concluding that the behavior of Homo sapiens could be understood from studies of behaviorally-troubled patients within his own society." (p. 24) On page 152 is perhaps Russell's main point, that "War evolved to displace in-group male aggression." On page 193 he adds, "War, for twenty million years, has served the needs of the ruling oligarchy above all other considerations." Those needs include killing off young males who represent not only a threat to the power of the oligarchy, but sexual competition. In fact, war can be seen as a pact between the ruling classes of one tribe and another: you kill off our excessive males and we'll kill off yours, and we'll both benefit.I have to disagree with Russell, however, on riots, which he equates with war. The riots in the cities are not like war; they are what will result if an enemy outside society cannot be found. Then the ruling classes themselves will become the enemy. One method of dealing with the violent dissatisfaction expressed in riots is ruthless suppression, as in totalitarian governments. Another is to ship the omega males off to war as in both totalitarian and democratic societies. A third method, employed in the United States today, is to put them into prison. We are simultaneously raisin