THE GENE

AN INTIMATE HISTORY

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The Gene is the story of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans, that governs our form and function.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 theauthor 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.

ISBN: 9781529114782

AUTHOR: SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE
ISBN: 9781529114782
Publisher: VINTAGE
Subtitle: AN INTIMATE HISTORY
Author: SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE

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SKU: 9781529114782
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Weight 0.46 kg
ISBN

9781529114782

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Publication Date

2017

Pages

593

Author

Author Description

Siddhartha Mukherjee is an Indian-American physician, biologist, and author. He is best known for his 2010 book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, that won notable literary prizes including the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General n-Fiction, and Guardian First Book Award, among others.

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