Genetic maps and human imaginations

by Barbara Katz Rothman

Barbara Katz Rothman provides an essential tour through what is happening on the genetics front and the earthshaking ramifications. This articulate, funny, and extremely provocative argument against bad science is also a passionate defense of the fact that human beings are social beings who grow into who they are, not "in large part ready made from the factory," as one recent popular book on genetics put it. In this book, Katz Rothman uses the texture of real life as woven through time - giving birth, raising a black child, family stories, working with midwives, her own family's cancer experiences, resonant moments with friends and strangers - to explore our culture's fascination with genetics. She aims to change the way people think, morally and intellectually, as individuals and as a community, about this potent and quickly advancing form of knowledge.