“When this book was first published, it was a landmark in studies of free-ranging primates as well as the first synthetic text on the ecology and behaviour of mothers and infants. It remains as important today as it was 20 years ago, and it is timely to bring it to the attention of a new generation of behavioural ecologists.”

P.C. Lee | Folia Primatologica

“This book, which looks at motherhood and infancy in baboons, is a classic for those interested in primate infant development, maternal behaviour, mother-infant relationships and social systems.”

Ethology

“What emerges from the text, but even more forcefully from the case histories, is a feeling for the richness and complexities . . . of the daily lives of baboon mothers and infants. One finishes this book wanting to know how the individual baboons’ stories ended and Altmann provides an update on the fates of some of her subjects. Since this book’s publication other researchers have conducted field studies of primate mothers and infants, but none have been more comprehensive. . . . Altmann’s observations here remain fresh and informative today because of the remarkable full picture she provides of the lives of these mother and infant baboons.”

Janice Chism | Quarterly Review of Biology

“When it was originally released in 1980, Jeanne Altmann’s book transformed the study of maternal primate relationships by focusing on motherhood and infancy within a complex ecological and sociological context. Available again with a new foreword by the author, this book is a classic one that has been, in its own right, a mother to a generation of influential research and will no doubt provide further inspiration.”

Ethology, Ecology | and Evolution