The book by one of the world's most famous primatologists, Frans de Waal, is dedicated to the evolutionary origins of human nature, its duality and biological roots. De Waal examines four key aspects of our nature - the desire for power, the need for sex, the tendency to acts of violence and acts of kindness - and based on many years of observations of great apes, he proves that all this is fully characteristic of them. In his work, he argues in favor of the idea of man as a social animal, a “bipolar ape”, equally similar to aggressive, competitive chimpanzees and empathic hedonistic bonobos. Without ignoring the baser sides of human nature, de Waal pays special attention to its positive, moral manifestations and how these two sides combine and complement each other, being equally important for the evolution of our species and for the survival of civilization as a whole.