Backlist Love is an informal series on “older” books that I hope you’ll find interesting. These aren’t so much reviews as quickie recommendations, so check out your favorite book review sources if you want more info.
The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA by James D. Watson (1968)
By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only twenty-four, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science’s greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries.
The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry by Bryan Sykes (2001)
One of the most dramatic stories of genetic discovery since James D. Watson’s The Double Helix — a work whose scientific and cultural reverberations will be discussed for years to come. In The Seven Daughters of Eve, Professor Bryan Sykes gives us a firsthand account of his research into a remarkable gene, which passes undiluted from generation to generation through the maternal line. After plotting thousands of DNA sequences from all over the world, Sykes found that they clustered around a handful of distinct groups. Among Europeans and North American Caucasians, there are, in fact, only seven. This conclusion was staggering: almost everyone of native European descent, wherever they may live throughout the world, can trace their ancestry back to one of seven women, the Seven Daughters of Eve.
Why I liked them
The Double Helix is interesting to me mainly as an historical account; I just wanted to know a little more about how DNA became a major field of scientific study originally. Of course, we know now that the work of a woman scientist, Rosalind Franklin, was instrumental to this discovery but was not properly acknowledged in her lifetime, and I want to be clear that this is a glaring omission from this particular narrative. Despite Watson’s complete dismissal of his colleague’s contributions, his voice is engaging and his memories of this momentous discovery are just fascinating.
The Seven Daughters of Eve is a combo of genetic science for the lay person + imaginative speculation about the lives of humanity’s shared ancestors. I know the science in this book is about a decade and a half old at this point, but it’s a great intro to mitochondrial DNA and how it can be used to help us make educated guesses about our family trees.
Who I’d recommend them to
The Double Helix is, I think, a book best appreciated by people who already have at least a basic background in biological sciences. And you have to realize that it’s basically the recollections of a single person — a brilliant person, but a fallible one.
Seven Daughters of Eve has a broader appeal. Anyone interested in human evolution and our prehistoric ancestors should definitely pick this up, but it will also be a great read for novice anthropologists and even genealogists who are interested in the impact of DNA on their family history research.
Links
The Double Helix
- Profiles of Watson, Crick, Wilkins, and Franklin from the Chemical Heritage Foundation
- Profiles of Watson, Crick, Wilkins, and Franklin from at DNA from the Beginning
- Paper on the discovery of the structure of DNA by Leslie A. Pray at Scitable
- Book review at American Scientist
The Seven Daughters of Eve
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