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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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From the reviews of previous volumes: ''A book rich...in ideasand substance....It belongs on the shelves of anyone wanting to keepupwith what is happening in ethology.''---Bioscience''Anincredible amount of new information. Every chapter presents aserious challenge for future research, not only by questioning whatwe now know, but also by presenting interesting and tractable ideasfor empirical research.''---Ethology ... Read more

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The current volume focuses on behavioral similarities anddifferences within individual animals, larger populations, and speciesas awhole. Research from ecological, social ontogenetic,physiological,and other perspectives is presented to explicatespecific behaviors,as well as to provide a more profoundunderstanding of how behaviorwork influences thought aboutevolutionary processes. ... Read more

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The Spanish conquest of Mexico is examined from the entirely new perspective of human animal behavior, or human ethology. Aspects of material culture like food, clothing, and shelter are explored as they relate to species-specific tendencies, including benevolence, brutality, xenophobia, curiosity, hierarchy, reciprocity, and territoriality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An unusual point of view about the conquest of Mexico
I found this book by a mere hazard, when I was net surfing in the Amazon.com site: his content called instantaneously my attention and seeming so interesting, despite the absurd price, I immediately ordered it. I didn't repent of that.

"Brutality and Benevolence" is a fine historical work, analising the spanish conquest of Mexico in a fair and well-balanced way, with rigour, objectiveness and seriousness, far away from the redutionist and distorted vision imposed about such theme by the political correctness movement, especially during and after the commemorations of the fifth centenary of Columbus arrival on America.

More than a conquest that brought opression to the indigenousness, this evenment was a truly liberation of those same peoples from the despotic domination of the Aztec Empire, a leviathan that demanded from his neighbouring and subjugated subjects of other native nations, permanently and abusively, high tributes, not only in the strict economic sense, but also and essentially in human lifes destined to be sacrificed in the blood thirsty rituals of the aztec religion.

The defeat of the Aztecs by the Spaniards, with the consequent fall of capital city Tenochtitlan, was only possible with the decisive contribution of the other non-aztec indigenous (Tlaxcalans, Huexotzicans, Atlaxcans and Totonacs), that allied spanish forces in order to overthrow the aztec domination they suffered.

It is also important to note, although the subsequent conqueror rule was not free of atrocities and abuses (mainly, derived from the system of "encomienda" that vigorated in the first years after the conquest; it was later forbidden, in the end of 16th century), contrarily to a common spread view, that same conqueror showed a real concern with the indians rights, especially through the justice system of "Audiencias" (frequently deciding in favour of the natives), but also with the creation of a net of hospitals destined to render health cares to those same natives.

The author analises all these evenments from an ethological point of view, in my opinion, with credibility: man, being a part of the nature, obviously shows common features with other living beings (principally, primates like chimpanzees or gorillas, considering their almost complete genetic similarity with humans); however, some assertions of Abel Alves seem quite exaggerated. For example, the benevolence showed by the conqueror, more than a reminiscence of an innate feature, was not a direct consequence of his catholic religion? I think it was... Concluding, the book is very interesting and I recommend it (despite the price...) to persons searching an unusual relate of the conquest of Mexico. ... Read more

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The developmental origins of human behavior are often seen as having parallels with the natural world of animal behavior. Researchers in ethology, the biological study of animal behavior, have amassed an enormous body of research, but the psychological study of child development has often ignored the findings, with the notable exception of John Bowlby's use of imprinting as a basis for a novel theory of human attachment. The author of this new book, a psychologist who has carried out research in ethology, evaluates the impact of several decades of ethological work on developmental psychology. He views human development from the context of the natural world, thereby re-establishing the links, begun with Charles Darwin, between research on child development and animal behavior. Chapters summarize important research on observational methods, animal models, social processes, sociobiology, the comparative method, non-verbal communication, and mental processes. ... Read more

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This book combines in a systematic and comprehensive form the various authoritative contributions by internationally established experts on the behaviour of the farm animal. This has been done in a way which allows the reader to trace specific items of information and to progress through the subject from an essential foundation to comprehensive and detailed accounts of behavioural characteristics.

The main part of the book is dedicated to the physiological basis of large animal behaviour, the development of behaviour, the manifold nature of behaviour relating to maintenance and to reproduction. Syndromes of irregular and abnormal behaviour are also fully covered.

The book will be an authoritative reference work for teachers and students. Researchers in the livestock sphere will find it invaluable as a source of behavioural information. ... Read more