My Family Album

An extraordinary album of photographs from one of the world’s foremost primatologists, with his characteristically humorous and enlightening observations.

For decades, New York Times best-selling author and world-renowned primatologist Frans de Waal studied monkeys and apes in zoos, research parks, and field settings. He captured the relationships of primates and their natural communication with an intimate knowledge, abundantly present in this unique work: a family album of our closest living relatives.

Culled from the thousands of photographs de Waal took across a thirty-year period, My Family Album showcases the rich social life of bonobos, chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys, baboons, and macaques. From parent-child bonds to territorial conflicts and romantic entanglements, the images capture the subtle gestures, expressions, and movements that elude most nature photographers and casual observers of our primate family. De Waal’s extended captions discuss each photograph and offer descriptions that range from colorful impressions to sharp professional interpretation, resulting in an intensely moving and personal view of all that science can tell us about primate company. With a new foreword by Carl Safina, this edition is a richly evocative album for animal lovers everywhere.