Despite their common interest in social behaviour and its evolution, traditional socioecology and the newer sociobiology have never been satisfactorily integrated. This is mainly a consequence of different emphases, the first focusing on the social system and its ecological determinants, the second on the individual and the genetical implications of behaviour. By attempting to integrate these two well developed bodies of theory, this book opens up new perspectives on social behaviour. This perspective is relevant not only to the study of primates, but to all taxonomic groups. The author"s standpoint reflects the rapidly growing view among primatologists in particular (and social biologists in general) that social behaviour needs to be approached in an integrated multidisciplinary way. The book focuses mainly on well-studied species of higher primates. This book should be of interest to second and third year undergraduate students of sociobiology and psychology; also of interest to research workers in ethology, sociobiology, psychology and anthropology.