In Mendel's Footnotes (2002) 17/01/06. Reviewed by Jon Turney Colin Tudge links modern genetics and the man who started it all.

A pity that one of the best overviews of the history and future of genetics published in recent years has one of the worst titles. OK, it signals the opening focus on the man who first systematised controlled observations of heredity. But it still undersells a fine book.

For Tudge, Mendel's work derived from a thoroughly modern outlook. His results from the monastery garden mark him as a great genius - and Tudge's praise is almost but not quite over the top. "Never in all of science have experiments been more beautifully conceived and executed": Discuss!

The first four chapters give us the background to Mendel's insights, the efforts of earlier breeders to understand how like beget like, and why he was able to cut through the confusion. This leads naturally into 20th-century genetics, as the author argues that all the modern ideas of classical genetics "flow naturally from Mendel's observations". This is historically way too simple, but makes for a neat exposition. Take Mendel's laws, goes Tudge's recipe, add Darwinian theory, and stir in a little molecular biology. Result: a seamless web that just about stitches up the whole of modern biology.

The consolation for this highly schematic history is that the book does seem to cover almost the whole of modern biology, and Tudge knows a great deal about it. He really does deliver on his subtitle, 'An introduction to the science and technologies of genes and genetics from the 19th century to the 22nd'. Well, maybe only the 21st, but even that is pretty ambitious coverage in a single volume.

So he includes a quick run-down on the molecular gene and how it works, a look at exactly how genes and Darwinism relate, and a brief review of evolutionary psychology (Tudge is broadly sympathetic, though critical of exaggerations of its current explanatory prowess). And there are chapters on breeding and conservation as well as genetic engineering, and a closing look at possible genetic futures for engineered humans. This of course is the current hot topic for people writing whole books on gene technology, so the treatment here is less than generous by comparison.

There is a little philosophy, and a caution that our gut feelings that we should be wary of, say, human cloning may signify something important. But he certainly raises the key issues, and does so in a narrative that ties our 21st-century dilemmas firmly to the vision first forged by an obscure Moravian friar who was born in 1822. Others have argued for this kind of continuity in the great project of taking charge of heredity - Simon Mawer's novel 'Mendel's Dwarf' weaves the monk's biography into a modern-day fiction to make just the same point. But Tudge does a splendid job of it within the bounds of a more conventional popular science text.

Book details

Paperback 354 pages (January 2002)
Publisher: Vintage
Language: English
ISBN: 0099288753