Praise for the first edition:
[Smuts] provides the reader with a vivid description of her own mental processes in carrying out the project--from the formulation of the initial questions, to the design of the data collection protocol, to the objective definition of friendship, to the moments when she gained insights from particular incidents in the field and used them to create or refine hypotheses, and finally to the analysis and interpretation [conveying] to the reader both the richness of everyday exchanges between male and female baboons and a feel for the intellectual experience of fieldwork.