Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me about Who We Are - Hardcover

Roger Fouts; Stephen Tukel Mills

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0788169270 ISBN 13: 9780788169274

Publisher: Morrow, William, & Co., Inc., 1997

Synopsis

Roger Fouts pioneered communication with chimpanzees through sign language. This is the story of his odyssey from novice researcher to celebrity scientist to impassioned crusader for the rights of animals. At the heart of this book is his 30-year friendship with Washoe, whom we watch grow from a baby chimp fresh into the matriarch of a clan of chimpanzees. Fouts also discovered that hundreds of chimpanzees were being subjected to perilous biomedical experimentation in labs across America. He became an outspoken advocate for improved conditions for animals in research labs, & devoted himself to rescuing this generation of chimpanzees.

About this title

Review:

For three decades, primatologist Roger Fouts has been involved in language studies of the chimpanzee, the animal most closely related to human beings. Among his subjects was the renowned Washoe, who was "endowed with a powerful need to learn and communicate," and who developed an extraordinary vocabulary in American Sign Language. Another chimpanzee, Fouts writes, "never made a grammatical error," which turned a whole school of linguistic theory upside down. While reporting these successes, Fouts also notes that chimpanzees are regularly abused in laboratory settings and that in the wild their number has fallen from 5,000,000 to fewer than 175,000 in the last century.

About the Author:

Marion Morra is the Associate Director of the Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, Connecticut. She is Associate Research Scientist at the Yale School of Medicine and Associate Clinical Professor at the Yale School of Nursing. Marion is widely published, having written articles and authored books for both health professionals and the public, with emphasis on health, especially in the field of cancer. She serves on major national committees for the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society.Eve Potts has been writing on medical subjects for more than 30 years. Her expertise is in making difficult medical information easy to understand. She has served as a medical writer and consultant to the Department of Health and Human Services and many medically oriented companies and institutions. Her interest in history is represented by another book, Westport A Special Place, 1987The two authors who are sisters, have collaborated on five other books: three editions of the best-selling book for cancer patients Choices (Avon Books, 1980, 1987, and 1994), Triumph: Getting Back to Normal When You Have Cancer (Avon Books, 1990), and Understanding Your Immune System (1986). In 1993, the authors received the Natalie Davis Springarn Writer's Award from the National Coalition for Cancer Survivors for "their valuable contributions to the literature of survivorship and for their books, Choices and Triumph." They also were awarded the 1995 National Health Information Silver Award, which honors the nation's best consumer health information programs and materials, for Choices.

About this edition

• Publisher: Morrow, William, & Co., Inc.
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0788169270
• ISBN 13: 9780788169274
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 420