Frans de Waal

Frans de Waal

Frans de Waal (Franciscus Bernardus Maria de Waal) was born on October 29th, 1948. Frans passed away March 14th, 2024 at 75 years old. Frans de Waal was born in \'s-Hertogenbosch, North Brabant, Netherlands. de Waal attended Utrecht University where he received a doctorate in biology. He also attended Radboud University Nijmegen and the University of Groningen.

Frans de Waal was an ethologist and primatologist. He was director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory, the Charlest Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, and author of numerous books.

Frans’ research was centered on primate social behavior, including food sharing, inequity aversion, conflict resolution, and cooperation.

He was a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the United States National Academy of Sciences.

In 1975, he started a 6 year long project on the world’s biggest captive colony of chimps at the Arnhem Zoo. His study resulted in many scientific papers, and it resulted in Frans publishing his first book: Chimpanzee Politics. It offered up the first description of primate behavior explicitly in terms of planned social strategies. Frans was the first to ever introduce the thinking of Machiavelli to primatology, leading to the label of Machiavellian intelligence which later would become associated with it.

During the mid 90s, the book got put on a reading list for Republican House freshmen. Fran, in his writings, never shied from attributing intentions and emotions to his primates, and as such his work inspired the field of primate cognition.

His early work drew some attention to conflict resolution and deception among the primates, each of which became major areas of research. At first, his research was majorly controversial and the label of reconciliation, which Frans introduced for reunions after fights, was questioned at first, yet later came to be totally accepted with respect to animal behavior.

Frans’ later work emphasized non-human animal empathy and the origins of morality.

Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves is a winner of the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and a New York Times Bestseller.

This book is a fascinating exploration of the rich emotional lives of animals, starting with Mama, a chimp matriarch that formed a deep bond with Jan van Hooff, a biologist. Her story and others like it; from rats helping out fellow rats in distress, to dogs “adopting” the injuries of their companions, to elephants revisiting the bones of their loved ones, show us that humans aren’t the only species with the capacity for disgust, hate, love, shame, fear, joy, guilt, and empathy.

Frans opens our minds and hearts to the many ways that humans and other animals are connected to each other.

Frans de Waal: Awards & Accolades

de Waal's book, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? won the Goodreads Awards, Best Science and Technology, in 2016.

de Waal's book, Mama's Last Hug was nominated for the Goodreads Awards, Best Science and Technology, in 2019.

Related Authors

Fans of Frans de Waal also enjoy these authors:

1. Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale Series.
2. Neil Gaiman, author of the American Gods Series.
3. Ursula K. Le Guin, author of the Earthsea Cycle Series.
4. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter Series.
5. Bill Bryson, author of the Bill Bryson Travel Books.

Frans de Waal: F.A.Q