This book brings together a range of chimpanzee experts who tell powerful personal stories about their lives and careers. It features some of the world’s preeminent primatologists—including Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal—as well as representatives of a new generation from varied backgrounds.

Stephen Ross is the director of the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. He is a coeditor of The Mind of the Chimpanzee (2010) and, with Lydia Hopper, Chimpanzees in Context (2020).

Lydia Hopper is an associate professor and director of behavioral management at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is an adjunct scientist at and was previously assistant director of the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at Lincoln Park Zoo.

Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, coauthor of A Dog's World: Imagining the Lives of Dogs in a World Without Humans:
Chimpanzee Memoirs is an invaluable collection of essays by a who's who of researchers who know these amazing nonhuman beings in astonishing detail. Reading these pieces, which come straight from the authors' hands and hearts, is an inspirational experience that explains what they did, why they did it, what it all means, and most importantly, what still needs to be done in the future to give these remarkable great apes the best lives possible in an increasingly human-dominated world. I hope it enjoys a global audience because the numerous lessons that are offered can be applied to many different species who depend on our goodwill for their very survival.

Virginia Morell, author of the New York Times best seller Animal Wise: How We Know Animals Think and Feel:
This compelling and inspiring collection of memoirs should thrill and delight all animal-loving readers. The editors have selected a range of tales from the most famous primatologist of all—Jane Goodall—to little-known local African researchers. Each person tells us how they came to study chimpanzees and how their research turned to passion and then grave concern as chimpanzee populations across Africa dramatically declined. If you’re not worried about the future of our closest relatives, you will be after you finish this volume of loving, heartfelt memoirs. And you’ll want to do all you can to help them.

Robert M. Sapolsky, John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor, Stanford University:
Chimpanzees sit in the Venn diagram overlap of topics that are intellectually compelling and those that are emotionally irresistible. Chimpanzee Memoirs shows that it can be fascinating to study the people who have devoted their lives to their fascination with chimps. These superb essays reveal the varying backgrounds that can prompt this obsession, and show that slogging through underbrush out in the field, and battling to save chimps from extinction can both constitute heroism. This is a great read.