Reviews
"Mukherjee views his subject panoptically, from a great and clarifying height, yet also intimately." -- New York Times Book Review " The Gene is both expansive and accessible . . . . In The Gene , Mukherjee spends most of his time looking into the past, and what he finds is consistently intriguing. But his sober warning about the future might be the book's most important contribution." -- San Francisco Chronicle " The Gene boats an even more ambitious sweep of human endeavor than its predecessor, The Emperor of All Maladies . . . . Mukherjee punctuates his encyclopedic investigations of collective and individual heritability, and our closing in on the genetic technologies that will transform how we will shape our own genome, with evocative personal anecdotes, deft literary allusions, wonderfully apt metaphors, and an irrepressible intellectual brio." -- Elle "[Mukherjee] expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories . . . .[and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry." -- Washington Post "Compassionate, tautly synthesized, packed with unfamiliar details about familiar people." -- The New York Times "A well-written, accessible, and entertaining account of one of the most important of all scientific revolutions, one that is destined to have a fundamental impact on the lives of generations to come. The Gene is an important guide to that future." -- The Guardian "Reading The Gene is like taking a course from a brilliant and passionate professor who is just sure he can make you understand what he's talking about. . . . Excellent." -- Seattle Times "A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are--and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future. . . . The Gene captures the scientific method--questioning, researching, hypothesizing, experimenting, analyzing--in all its messy, fumbling glory, corkscrewing its way to deeper understanding and new questions." -- Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel "Dr Mukherjee uses personal experience to particularly good effect. . . . Powerful." -- The Economist "As compelling and revealing as [ The Emperor of All Maladies ]. . . . On one level, The Gene is a comprehensive compendium of well-told stories with a human touch. But at a deeper level, the book is far more than a simple science history." -- Dallas Morning News "Mukherjee's visceral and thought-provoking descriptions... clearly show what he is capable of, both as a writer and as a thinker." -- Nature "His topic is compelling. . . . And it couldn't have come at a better time." -- Boston Globe "Compelling... Highly recommended." -- Booklist, starred review "Sobering, humbling, and extraordinarily rich reading from a wise and gifted writer who sees how far we have come--but how much farther far we have to go to understand our human nature and destiny." -- Kirkus, starred review "Mukherjee deftly relates the basic scientific facts about the way genes are believed to function, while making clear the aspects of genetics that remain unknown. He offers insight into both the scientific process and the sociology of science... By relating familial information, Mukherjee grounds the abstract in the personal to add power and poignancy to his excellent narrative." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
