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The Chimp Who Would Be Human
by Elizabeth Hess
Dubbed Project Nim, the experiment was the brainchild of Herbert S. Terrace, a psychologist at Columbia University. His goal was to teach a chimpanzee American Sign Language in order to refute Noam Chomsky’s assertion that language is an exclusively human trait. Nim Chimpsky, the baby chimp at the center of this ambitious, potentially groundbreaking study, was “adopted” by one of Dr. Terrace’s graduate students and brought home to live with her and her large family in their elegant brownstone on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
At first Nim’s progress in learning ASL and adapting to his new environment exceeded all expectations. His charm, mischievous sense of humor, and keen, sometimes shrewdly manipulative understanding of human nature endeared him to everyone he met, and even led to guest appearances on Sesame Street, where he was meant to model good behavior for toddlers. But no one had thought through the long-term consequences of raising a chimp in the human world, and when funding for the study ran out, Nim’s problems began.
Over the next two decades, exiled from the people he loved, Nim was rotated in and out of various facilities. It would be a long time before this chimp who had been brought up to identify with his human caretakers had another opportunity to blow out the candles on a cake celebrating his birthday. No matter where he was sent, however, Nim’s hard-earned ability to converse with humans would prove to be his salvation, protecting him from the fate of many of his peers.
"Though long and sometimes rambling, this troubling narrative raises important questions about humans' relationships with and responsibility toward other primates." - Kirkus Reviews.
"This may well be the only book on linguistics and primatology that will leave its readers in tears over the life and times of its amazing subject." - Publishers Weekly.
"If you read only one book about the strange, fruitful, and fraught relationship between humans and animals, let this be it." - Dale Peterson, author of Jane Goodall, The Woman Who Redefined Man.
"An absolutely absorbing page-turner by a writer of such boundless empathy that she could tell an animal’s story and make it, yes—deeply human." - Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickled and Dimed.
"A smart, tough-minded, big-hearted meditation on the fate of our nearest relatives, and a marvelous biography as well. The story of Nim Chimpsky tells us more about our own species than we probably want to hear, but we need to hear it, now." - Russell Banks, author of The Darling.
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