This thoughtful book is a great read for all biologists, from the budding greenhorn to the seasoned old-goat. Although directed at the behavioral sciences, many biologists will find the enlightening but terse chapters a helpful framework when designing a future study (or refining one already underway). The first chapter is a concise explanation of scientific epistemology (a sorely neglected topic in academia) and how to design a study which will actually provide scientific knowledge; this chapter will be invaluable to young graduate students as it outlines how to find a problem and how to both formulate and test a model. Subsequent chapters outline (in a more tutorial fashion) how to: write research proposals, write research reports, present research and write a curriculum vitae. These discussions and instructions, coming from authors who have served on numerous reviewing agencies (both funding and scientific reporting) will certainly contain nuggets valuable to researchers at all levels. This book has served to re-focus my energies in more productive directions, and I sincerely think it will do similarly for other biologists.

A good survey text of primate social ecology. Strier's work among new world primates makes this book better than most which are too heavily biased towards macaque and chimp studies.