By picking one newly discovered gene from each of the 23 pairs of human chromosomes, and telling its story, Matt Ridley recounts the history of our species and its ancestors from the dawn of life to the brink of future medicine, taking his cue from the effort to read the human genome – a project whose completion in 2003 inspired Nature via Nurture with its revelation that the human genome contains only around 30,000 genes.
‘Genome is a tour de force: clear, witty, timely and informed by an intelligence that sees new knowledge as a blessing and not a curse. It is also a cracking read.’
NIGEL HAWKES, The Times