There can be nothing better than reading books but it becomes quite a luxury when we add the time constraint. Having oversubscribed myself to quite a good number of magazines, I find it hard to commit myself for a book.
However, the other day while browsing through the non-fiction section of the Public Library I stumbled upon the second book by Siddhartha Mukherjee; The Gene: An Intimate History.
I had always longed to read the first and
Pulitzer winning book by this author - The Emperor of Maladies. So when I saw ‘The Gene’ available on the rack I couldn’t avoid grasping it. The book is voluminous but still I decided to take up the challenge. And I have been doing pretty good at that.
It would be futile attempt for a person like me who last read biology in 10th standard to write an academic review of the book. But I would rather limit myself to writing why this book is a worthy read for a person who loves science.
‘The Gene: An Intimate History’ as the name suggests
tracks historically one of most important discoveries of science right from the ancient times, when it was just as concept to the ancient thinkers and philosophers, to the modern day unraveling of the mysteries related to the unit of heredity.
I have always had a liking for history but the
history of science is something we get very seldom to read. We have well documented history of society, politics, war but science lacks its share. What we get of science history are only the first one or two pages at the beginning of text-books which are written as part of the introduction. We always miss the point that it is important to know the history behind a scientific discovery or invention to understand its importance. It is also important to know the society and politics of the time and then we will understand the weight-age of what Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin or others had achieved.
