The Gene: An Intimate History
The story of the gene begins in an obscure Augustinian abbey in Moravia
in 1856, where a monk 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 post-war
biology. It reorganizes our understanding of sexuality, temperament,
choice and free will. Above all, this is a story driven by human
ingenuity and obsessive minds–from Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel to
Francis Crick, James Watson and Rosalind Franklin, and the thousands of
scientists still working to understand the code of codes.
This
is an epic, moving history of a scientific idea being brought to life,
by the author of The Emperor of All Maladies. But woven through The
Gene, like a red line, is also an intimate history–the story of
Mukherjee’s own family and its recurring pattern of mental illness,
reminding us that genetics is vitally relevant to everyday lives. These
concerns reverberate 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. Majestic in its ambition, and
unflinching in its honesty, The Gene gives us a definitive account of
the fundamental unit of heredity–and a vision of both humanity’s past
and future.
