Author
The Gene
The Gene is a large-scale history of heredity as both a scientific problem and a consequential human idea. Mukherjee follows the subject from early speculation about reproduction and inheritance through Gregor Mendel’s experiments, Darwinian evolution, chromosome theory, the identification of DNA as hereditary material, molecular genetics, recombinant DNA, gene sequencing, cloning, the Human Genome Project, and early twenty-first-century genome editing. The chronology is interwoven with accounts of Mukherjee’s family history of mental illness and his clinical perspective as a cancer physician and researcher. This personal strand turns heredity from an abstract mechanism into a source of uncertainty about illness, identity, probability, and family responsibility. The book is therefore not simply a technical account of how genes work. It examines how societies have interpreted genetic knowledge, how eugenic programs converted claims about heredity into coercive policy, and how the abili…