Heredity : a very short introduction / John Waller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Waller, John, 1972- author.

Series:

Very short introductions ; 532.

Very Short Introductions ; 532

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Heredity.

Heredity--History.

Heredity, Human.

History.

Medical Subjects:

Heredity.

Physical Description:

xx, 151 pages : illustrations, map ; 18 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

[Oxford, United Kingdom] : Oxford University Press, [2017]

Summary:

The idea of heredity--that qualities of body and mind are somehow inherited from one's parents--has profoundly shaped many aspects of the human experience: from our attempts to understand variation in personality and intelligence, and popular attitudes to gender, race, and social hierarchy, to the methods employed to increase crop yields and the value of horses and cattle. In this Very Short Introduction, John Waller traces both the technical study of biological inheritance and its ideological uses. He follows the concept of heredity from antiquity into a modern age of molecular biology in which a brave new prospect is emerging: the capacity to manipulate the human genome itself--dust jacket.

Contents:

1 Souls, seeds, and chauvinism, 2500 BC-AD 400 1

2 Sex, seed, and sin in the medieval world 15

3 Heredity in the early modern world, 1450-1700 22

4 Heredity in the Enlightenment 37

5 Heredity in the 9th century 53

6 Molecules and men 72

7 New horizons 101

8 Progress and possibility 132.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-143) and index.

ISBN:

9780198790457

0198790457

OCLC:

1004274752

Publisher Number:

99974782357