Overview
Siddhartha Mukherjee traces the history of genetics from Mendel's pea experiments to CRISPR gene editing.
Mukherjee, an oncologist and writer, published The Gene in 2016 as a follow-up to The Emperor of All Maladies, his Pulitzer-winning history of cancer. The book traces the history of genetics from Mendel and Darwin through Watson-Crick to CRISPR and the moral dilemmas of germline editing. It is narrative history as much as science writing.
Key Ideas
Genes are not destiny
The interplay between genes and environment is so complex that genetic determinism is untenable.
Eugenics is a warning
The history of genetics is inseparable from the horror of eugenics.
CRISPR changes everything
The ability to precisely edit genes raises profound ethical questions.
Who should read this
Readers who want a long-form, humane history of a field that has reshaped medicine and will reshape more of it. The book is particularly strong on the moral dimensions — the eugenics chapters are careful and unflinching — and on the family history that frames the personal stakes for Mukherjee.
Who might skip it
Skip if you want current-state-of-the-art molecular biology; the book is history, and the last five years of CRISPR work are necessarily not covered. Skip also if you want a textbook; Mukherjee is narrative-driven throughout.
The verdict
A masterpiece of science writing in the same league as Sagan's Cosmos and Dawkins's The Blind Watchmaker. Mukherjee earns his length — the book is long, but it is long the way a river is long, with distinct regions and a clear direction. The ethical chapters at the end are what distinguish it from other histories of genetics.
"An organism's identity is determined by the dialogue between its genes and its environment."
— Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene
If you liked this
The Emperor of All Maladies for Mukherjee's earlier masterpiece on cancer. The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson for the CRISPR-specific story.