“Reacting to the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, the great Oxford linguist Max Müller declared that language formed a Rubicon that no animal dared to cross. Yet, if experiments could demonstrate that our presumptive relatives, apes and monkeys, had the rudiments of language—that they could even speak among themselves—that river would prove rather shallow. Gregory Radick traces, with stylistic dexterity and historical originality, the routes taken by theories of animal language and reason from the late nineteenth century through today. Along the way he uncovers the seamier side of scientific life and enough intrigue to be worthy of a detective novel.”

Robert J. Richards, University of Chicago

“The Simian Tongue ranges deftly from philosophical discussions of the nature of language to technical and business questions relating to the development of sophisticated recording equipment, and from scientific papers to the often more sensational treatments of science provided by the press. It is original in its purview, impeccable in its scholarship and written with unusual energy, grace, and lucidity.”

Richard W. Burkhardt Jr., author of Patterns of Behavior: Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, and the Founding of Ethology

"An instructive read for anyone interested in the language barrier, or absence thereof, between humans and other animals."

Frans B. M. de Waal | Nature

"A masterwork in the history of science...The Simian Tongue reaches the status of a page-turner. . . . It reminds us with stunning clarity that science is a spiral staircase; new techniques and theories emerge, not always in linear fashion, from the old. It shows, too, science’s power to shape ways we humans think of, and act towards, our fellow creatures."

Barbara J. King | Times Literary Supplement

"Gregory’s Radick’s much-welcome monograph recovers and adroitly lays bare the shifting evolutionary implications, institutional fortunes and intellectual capital of one of the most fascinating experimental paradigms in the history of science: the primate playback experiment....The Simian Tongue is a ground-breaking work that will be of interest to historians of science, animal studies scholars, eco-critics, and to everyone interested in the relationship between evolutionary ideology and the politics of language."

Christine Ferguson | The British Society for Literature and Science

"Radick covers the issues and the characters carefully, thoughtfully, and in the process affords us a glimpse of the personal, professional, and political factors that shaped [the researchers’] enterprises. . . . How and why their impressions changed, and how the careers of many others were similarly influenced, makes engaging reading."

Drew Rendall | Evolutionary Anthropology