Drawing the map of life

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Robert Cook-Deegan

The Human Genome Project, the most ambitious biological research program ever undertaken, was born in controversy. Heralded by its more enthusiastic proponents as a quest for the "Holy Grail of biology" - and the key, ultimately, to the treatment of a variety of hereditary diseases - it has as its initial goal the mapping of all the genes in the entire three-billion-letter genetic code embodied in the DNA of a typical human cell. A major factor in the counterarguments of its opponents: its projected cost, estimated to run into the billions of dollars, spread over 10-20 years. In this firsthand account of the protracted struggle to launch the genome project, a close observer of that process - and sometime participant in it - unravels the tangled scientific and political threads of the story, relying on primary documents gathered even as events unfolded, supplemented by interviews with all the main actors - including the controversial first head of the National Institutes of Health genome effort, Nobel laureate James D. Watson. The result is an absorbing case study in the politics of modern science - focused in this case on a project with far-reaching medical and social implications.

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edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom

Volpone / William Empson -- The false ending in Volpone / Stephen Greenblatt -- Comic form in Ben Jonson / Leo Salingar -- Comic language in Volpone / L.A. Bea urline -- The double view in Volpone / C.N. Manlove -- Volpone / Anne Barton -- The play of conspirancies in Volpone / William W. E. Slights.

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with an introduction by Sally Green

V. Gordon Childe was educated in Australia as an archaeologist. He adopted a Marxist approach to the evolution of human cultures, recognizing the interpenetration of cultures as populations came into contact and adopted techniques from one another. He stressed the importance of the development of human creativity and its growing effect on the pace and content of cultural evolution. He also recognized the interplay between biological and cultural evolution as the evolution of primates developed a lineage that culminated in the appearance of H. sapiens. The book was published in 1939.

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Margaret Louise Harris

A narrative account of a journey of discovery—of four hundred years of American history enveloping twelve generations of families. The author traces her ancestry back through mysteries and revelations, hunger and plenty, sorrow and joy, war and peace.