The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History
Now includes an excerpt from Siddhartha Mukherjee's new book Song of the Cell!
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and "a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingeniously picked apart what makes us tick" (Elle).
"Sid Mukherjee has the uncanny ability to bring together science, history, and the future in a way that is understandable and riveting, guiding us through both time and the mystery of life itself." —Ken Burns
"Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee dazzled readers with his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies in 2010. That achievement was evidently just a warm-up for his virtuoso performance in The Gene: An Intimate History, in which he braids science, history, and memoir into an epic with all the range and biblical thunder of Paradise Lost" (The New York Times). In this biography Mukherjee brings to life the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
"Mukherjee expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories...[and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry" (The Washington Post). Throughout, the story of Mukherjee's own family—with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness—reminds us of the questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In riveting and dramatic prose, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome.
"A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are—and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future" (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), The Gene is the revelatory and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master. "The Gene is a book we all should read" (USA TODAY).
The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History
Now includes an excerpt from Siddhartha Mukherjee's new book Song of the Cell!
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and "a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingeniously picked apart what makes us tick" (Elle).
"Sid Mukherjee has the uncanny ability to bring together science, history, and the future in a way that is understandable and riveting, guiding us through both time and the mystery of life itself." —Ken Burns
"Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee dazzled readers with his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies in 2010. That achievement was evidently just a warm-up for his virtuoso performance in The Gene: An Intimate History, in which he braids science, history, and memoir into an epic with all the range and biblical thunder of Paradise Lost" (The New York Times). In this biography Mukherjee brings to life the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
"Mukherjee expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories...[and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry" (The Washington Post). Throughout, the story of Mukherjee's own family—with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness—reminds us of the questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In riveting and dramatic prose, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome.
"A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are—and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future" (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), The Gene is the revelatory and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master. "The Gene is a book we all should read" (USA TODAY).
Critiques-
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Starred review from February 29, 2016
In skillful prose, Mukherjee, an oncologist and the Pulitzer Prizeâwinning author of The Emperor of All Maladies, relates the grand tale of how scientists have come to understand the role genes play in human development, behavior, and physiology. He deftly relates the basic scientific facts about the way genes are believed to function, while making clear the aspects of genetics that remain unknown. Mukherjee offers insight into both the scientific process and the sociology of science, exploring the crucial experiments that have shed light on the biochemical complexities inherent in the genome. He also examines many of the philosophical and moral quandaries that have long swirled around the study of genetics, addressing such important topics as eugenics, stem cell research, and what it means to use the composition of a person's genotype to make predictions about his or her health or behavior. Looking to the future, Mukherjee addresses prospects for medical advances in the treatment of diseases and in selectingâor actively craftingâthe genetic composition of offspring, regularly pointing out the pressing ethical considerations. Throughout, he repeatedly poses the question, "What is ânatural'?" declining to offer a single answer, in recognition that both context and change are essential. By relating familial information, Mukherjee grounds the abstract in the personal to add power and poignancy to his excellent narrative. -
April 1, 2016
The development of the concept of the gene as the primary unit of heredity is comparable in terms of impact and importance to that of the atom and the byte to physics and information science, respectively, argues Mukherjee (medicine, Columbia Univ.; The Emperor of All Maladies). The author traces the history of the gene from Gregor Mendel's 19th-century pea pod experiments to the approval, in the UK, of the creation of a three-parent embryo in 2015 (egg from one mother, mitochondria from another, and sperm from a father). In graceful prose, Mukherjee combines lucid explanations of scientific concepts with the social and cultural developments at each phase in human understanding of genetics. His analogy of the atom is particularly apropos: that understanding has led to both the atomic bomb and significant energy sources and scientific breakthroughs, while increasing knowledge of heredity and genes has eugenics and Nazi extermination plans marching lockstep with synthetic insulin and potential cancer therapies. VERDICT This highly accessible and thoughtful volume on a cornerstone of modern biology will have broad appeal, amplified by the success of Mukherjee's previous work.--Evan M. Anderson, Kirkendall P.L., Ankeny, IA
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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July 25, 2016
Veteran voice actor Boutsikaris’s talents are on full display in the audio edition of the latest from oncologist and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Mukherjee. He uses vocal flexibility to stress phrases, words, and even syllables to illuminate the grand tale of how scientists have come to understand the role genes play in human development, behavior, and physiology. Boutsikaris has such control of grammatical structure that every sentence, no matter the length, is clear, and he includes frequent transitional pauses that help the listener retain focus all the way through Mukherjee’s complex but fascinating narrative, chronicling breakthroughs in the quest to understand human heredity, from the work of Darwin and Mendel to current research in the field of genetics. A Scribner hardcover. -
December 1, 2015
You'll recognize Mukherjee as the cancer physician and researcher whose The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer won the Pulitzer Prize. Here he gives us another "biography," this one blending science, social history, and personal narrative to explain how our understanding of the gene came about. Along the way he ranges from Aristotle to Crick, Watson, and Rosa Franklin while also revealing the cloud of mental illness hanging over his own family.
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
