BERNARD THIERRY is Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Strasbourg, France. He has studied the social behaviour of non-human primates for the past 25 years, and is particularly interested in how internal constraints channel the evolutionary changes of social organisations.

MEWA SINGH is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Mysore, India. His main research focus is on the evolution of sociality, and he is especially interested in bridging the gap between conservation biology and behavioural biology.

WERNER KAUMANNS is Curator of Primates and Head of the Primatology Working Group at Cologne Zoo, Germany. His special interest is also in conservation biology, and he has been involved in research on lion-tailed macaques with special reference to the effects of habitat fragmentation.

Animal and human societies are multifaceted. In order to understand how they have evolved, it is necessary to investigate each of the constituent facets including individual abilities and personalities, life-history traits, mating systems, demographic dynamics, gene flows, social relationships, ecology and phylogeny. By exploring the nature and evolution of macaque social organization, this book develops our knowledge of the rise of societies and their transformation during the course of evolution. Macaques are the most comprehensively studied of all monkey groups, and the 20 known species feature a broad diversity in their social relationships, making them a particularly good group for exploring the evolution of societies. This book will be of primary interest to those studying animal behaviour and primatology, but will also be useful to those involved in the study of human societies.