From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies, this fascinating history of the gene includes the story of Mukherjee’s own family—with its tragic history of mental illness—translating the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In riveting and accessible prose, Mukherjee 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.
"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