Description:
National Book Critics Circle Award--2017 Nonfiction Finalist
"Nothing less than a tour de force--a heady amalgam of science, history, a little bit of anthropology and plenty of nuanced, captivating storytelling."--The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice
A National Geographic Best Book of 2017
Brief description: Adam Rutherford is a geneticist, science writer, and broadcaster. He studied genetics at University College London, and during his PhD on the developing eye, he was part of a team that identified the first known genetic cause of a form of childhood blindness. As well as writing for the science pages of The Guardian, he has written and presented many award-winning series and programs for the BBC, including the flagship weekly Radio 4 program Inside Science, The Cell for BBC Four, and Playing God (on the rise of synthetic biology) for the leading science series Horizon. He is also the author of How to Argue With a Racist, an incisive guide to what modern genetics can and can't tell us about human difference; The Book of Humans, a new evolutionary history that explores the profound paradox of the "human animal"; A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction; and Creation, on the origin of life and synthetic biology, which was short-listed for the Wellcome Book Prize.
Review Quotes: A National Bestseller
A National Geographic Best Book of 2017
An Amazon Best Book of 2017
2017 Foreword INDIES Gold Winner
Winner of the 2018 Thomas Bonner Book Prize
A New York Public Library Book of the Day
"A family portrait for all humanity . . . This enjoyable book has a great deal to say about our genetic code--or, more precisely, about how our knowledge of genetics is misused and misconstrued. . . . [Rutherford] proves an enthusiastic guide and a good storyteller.-- "The Wall Street Journal"