The Naked Ape

This work has become a benchmark of popular anthropology and psychology. A book no human animal dare miss reading.

Zoologist Desmond Morris considers humans as being simply another animal species in this classic book first published in 1967. Here is the Naked Ape at his most primal in love, at work, at war. Meet man as he really is: relative to the apes, stripped of his veneer as we see him courting, making love, sleeping, socializing, grooming, playing. The Naked Ape takes its place alongside Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, presenting man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape, remarkable in his resilience, energy and imagination, yet an animal nonetheless, in danger of forgetting his origins.

With its penetrating insights on man's beginnings, sex life, habits and our astonishing bonds to the animal kingdom, The Naked Ape is a landmark, at once provocative, compelling and timeless.

About the Author

Desmond Morris was born in Wiltshire in 1928. He became curator of mammals at London Zoo in 1959, a post he held for eight years. He was already the author of some fifty scientific papers and seven books before The Naked Ape was published in 1967, which was to sell over 10 million copies throughout the world and be translated into almost every known language. He has made many television programs and films on human and animal behaviour. He is also an accomplished artist. He currently lives in Oxford.