"How do people who love animals translate that devotion into helping creatures who are not our pets? How do we express our care for animals when that means different things to omnivores and vegetarians-or, say, to hunters and non-hunters? Barbara J. King, a widely read expert on animal cognition and emotion, here guides readers through the difficult choices and deep rewards of turning empathy into action on behalf of animals. King discusses our relationship...

"Mother and infant negotiate over food; two high-status males jockey for power; female kin band together to get their way. It happens among humans and it happens among our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom, the great apes of Africa. Using dynamic systems theory, an approach employed to study human communication, Barbara King is able to demonstrate the genuine complexity of apes' social communication, and the extent to which their interactions...