Variation in human skulls. From Armand de Quatrefages 1882 Crania ethnica: les cranes des races humaines.
Group of Selk’nam, Tierra del Fuego c.1914. (The Royal Geographical Society, London)
About the Author
Armand Marie Leroi, in addition to many technical articles on evolutionary and developmental biology, has written for the London Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement. He was appointed Reader in Evolutionary Developmental Biology at Imperial College in 2001 and was also warded the Scientist for the New Century medal by the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Mutants is his first book.
Visit Armand Marie Leroi on the web: http://armandleroi.com/index.html.
Praise for Mutants
“Armand Leroi is not yet a household name but he soon will be, if Mutants wins the following it deserves. The discovery of a distinguished scientist who can write with such style and flair is cause for rejoicing.”
“Leroi has an extraordinarily extensive familiarity with a dazzling range of information…. [He] draws tight his net of wonderful human diversity and gracefully displays its contents, and I am full of admiration … an exquisitely life-enhancing book. It captures what we know of the development of what makes us human…. Read it and marvel.”
“Leroi’s debut is a gloriously inquisitive and even hopeful journey into the making and unmaking of human beings, a recognition that genetic variation is essential to life even as it bears us down to our graves.”
“Leroi is a gifted storyteller … he places each mutation in a literary framework.”
“In a series of erudite, gracefully crafted essays, Leroi guides us through a wealth of medical phenomena—both the normal and the shockingly abnormal… he lifts us up from an instinctive horror at the bizarre to a more profound sense of wonder.”
“There are three things that lift this book above mere exploitation: the seriousness of Leroi’s scientific investigations; the humane concern he manifests for the suffering of others; and the sensitivity of his aesthetic appreciation of the wonders of nature…. [His] patient unfolding of the mysteries of modern genetics… Poetic, philosophical, profound, witty and challenging, Leroi is, as he says of Goya, a ‘compassionate connoisseur of deformity.”’
“For those who truly wish to know their origins without consulting a dry academic tome, this is a book to read.”
“Gracefully written and up-to-date account of the state of the field. His approach is cunning; like a fairground barker, he first appeals to our voyeurism, but then adroitly bends our interests toward the science underlying the mutants…. Mutants roams engagingly through great swathes of literature, mythology, and history…. Well worth reading, not only for its fascinating tales of development, but also for its scrutiny of a vast uncharted area of biology.”
“Leroi writes about the body with Pateresque delicacy; he is an aesthete for whom understanding enhances mystery; an artist who gazes at the dance of genes as the fetus forms itself.”
“In a book that’s as disturbing as it is enlightening, as unsettling as it is compelling, Leroi examines all sorts of genetic variability in humans and explains how that variability helps scientists understand the processes associated with human growth and development… . Although the subjects Leroi presents—conjoined twins, individuals with cyclopia (a single eye), deformed or missing limbs, abnormal height… often appear grotesque, he approaches all of his topics and each of his human subjects with great respect.”
“Once, people with disfiguring or bizarre mutations were thought monstrous. Now they give vital clues to the dance of genes during the body’s growth. Armand Leroi combines meticulous historical research, brand-new genetic understanding, and consummate skill with words to tell an absorbing tale.”
“File under: not to be read during pregnancy.”
“This book is not a smarmy gallery of freaks and monsters… an elegant study… Leroi’s aim is to illuminate, not to titillate… a testament to both the ingenuity of organic life and the protean nature of what it means to be human.”
“[A] fascinating and immensely readable book.”
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