The gene : an intimate history Cover Image

Large Print Book

The gene : an intimate history / Siddhartha Mukherjee.

Summary:

The story of the gene begins in earnest in an obscure Augustinian abbey in Moravia in 1856 where Gregor Mendel, a monk working with pea plants, stumbles on the idea of a "unit of heredity." It intersects with Darwin's theory of evolution, and collides with the horrors of Nazi eugenics in the 1940s. The gene transforms postwar biology. It invades discourses concerning race and identity and provides startling answers to some of the most potent questions coursing through our political and cultural realms. It reorganizes our understanding of sexuality, gender identity, sexual orientation, temperament, choice, and free will, thus raising the most urgent questions affecting our personal realms. Above all, the story of the gene is driven by human ingenuity and obsessive minds -- from Mendel and Darwin to Francis Crick, James Watson, and Rosalind Franklin to the thousands of scientists working today to understand the code of codes. Woven through the book is the story of author Mukherjee's own family and its recurring pattern of schizophrenia, a haunting reminder that the science of genetics is not confined to the laboratory but is vitally relevant to everyday lives. The moral complexity of genetics reverberates even more urgently today as we learn to "read" and "write" the human genome -- unleashing the potential to change the fates and identities of our children and our children's children.

Record details

ISBN: 9781410490087
ISBN: 1410490084
ISBN: 9781432837815
ISBN: 1432837818
Physical Description: 881 pages (large print), 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm.
Edition: Large print edition.
Publisher: Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thorndike Press, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning, 2016.
Copyright: ©2016

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references.
Formatted Contents Note:	Prologue: Families -- "The missing science of heredity" 1865-1935 -- "In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts" 1930-1970 -- "The dreams of geneticists" 1970-2001 -- "The proper study of mankind is man" 1970-2005 -- Through the looking glass 2001-2015 -- Post-genome 2015- ... -- Epilogue: Bheda, Abheda.