Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics [Hardcover]

Simon Mawer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2006

Considered one of the greatest scientists in history, Gregor Mendel was the first person to map the characteristics of a living thing’s successive generations, thus forming the foundation of modern genetic science. In Gregor Mendel, distinguished novelist and biologist Simon Mawer outlines Mendel’s groundbreaking research and traces his intellectual legacy from his discoveries in the mid-19th century to the present.

In an engaging narrative enhanced by beautiful illustrations, Mawer details Mendel’s life and work, from his experimentation with garden peas through his subsequent findings about heredity and genetic traits. Mawer also highlights the scientific work built on Mendel’s breakthroughs, including the discovery of the DNA molecule by scientists Watson and Crick in the 1950s, the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, and the advances in genetics that continue today.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Simon Mawer is a noted novelist and biologist. The author of the historical novels The Fall, The Gospel of Judas, and Mendel’s Dwarf, Mawer lives with his family in Rome, where he has spent the past 20 years teaching biology.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; 1ST edition (September 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810957485
• ISBN-13: 978-0810957480
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 7.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #586,777 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Simon Mawer was born in 1948 in England, and spent his childhood there, in Cyprus and in Malta. Educated at Millfield School in Somerset and at Brasenose College, Oxford, he took a degree in biology and worked as a biology teacher for many years. His first novel, Chimera, was published by Hamish Hamilton in 1989, winning the McKitterick Prize for first novels. Mendel's Dwarf (1997), his first book to be publish in the US, reached the last ten of the Booker Prize and was a New York Time "Book to Remember" for 1998. The Gospel of Judas, The Fall (winner of the 2003 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature) and Swimming to Ithaca followed. In 2009 The Glass Room, his tenth book and eighth novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Mawer is married and has two children. He has lived in Italy for the past thirty years.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid Introduction to History of Genetics, August 20, 2011

By 

David B Richman (Mesilla Park, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics (Hardcover)

Genetics must be one of the least understood of the biological sciences. Both layman and professional have misconstrued genetic principles in order to fit their preconceived notions on race, intelligence, inheritance and superiority. Thus any good historical introduction to the subject is helpful in clearing away the fog. Simon Mawer is the author of such a book - "Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics." This is a short, well-illustrated, telling of the history of genetics, appropriately centered on the work and life of Gregor Mendel. Over half (89 pages) is devoted to Mendel's work during his life and the rest of the book to the "re-discovery" of his research by De Vries and Correns and the developments afterwards, including the discovery that DNA was the source of variation, the elucidation of the chemical structure of DNA, "jumping genes," and other positive developments, along with the negative developments produced through eugenics in the United States and Europe, and Lysenkoism in Russia. It is a generally well-written book and my main complaint is that the union of genetics with selection theory into the Synthetic Theory of Evolution is not mentioned, but this may have more to do with the shortness and primary focus of the book than a real oversight.

Mawer does discuss the cutting-edge research brought on by the discovery of transposons ("jumping genes") and of the fact that the human genome has many fewer genes than expected for the number of proteins involved. Thus the "one gene, one protein" concept proposed by Beadle and Tatum is apparently not accurate. The result is that in the 21st Century researchers have ushered in the study of epigenetics in which genetics is conceived to be much more complicated than originally thought and in which environmental factors may actually help alter genomes.

Mawer has written a very good introduction to Mendel's discoveries and the resulting later developments. I recommend his book to those who would have some interest in the historical development of genetics. It is my opinion that science can be best understood in a historical context and this book fits very well into that view.