The Gene
By Siddhartha Mukherjee
Categories: Medical Books
Physician and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee's 2016 book tells the history of the gene and of the people who worked to understand heredity, from Aristotle and Mendel to Darwin, Crick, Watson and Franklin and the scientists who mapped the human genome. Mukherjee weaves in his own family's history of mental illness and asks what genetic science means for identity, fate and choice. He also warns against letting genetic predispositions define a person, a way of thinking that once fed the rise of eugenics.
Recommended by 5 people
- Reid Hoffman
- John Legend
- Bryan Johnson
- Bill Gates
- Shane Parrish: “Siddhartha Mukherjee wrote the bestselling (and Pulitzer-Prize winning) Emperor of all Maladies, a history of cancer. He’s matched that feat here with The Gene. The book is a history of genetics, our search for the gene, and what’s possible with the modern understanding of how genes work (good and bad).”