Discovering Life's Story: the Birth of Genetics

This narrative nonfiction work chronicles the history of genetics. It begins with early theories of heredity, focusing on Gregor Mendel and his foundational work with pea plants. The story then moves through Charles Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selection, setting the stage for the search for a physical mechanism of inheritance. The core of the book details the 20th-century race to discover the structure of DNA, highlighting the key players: Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray crystallography was crucial, and James Watson and Francis Crick, who ultimately pieced together the double helix model. The book concludes by touching on the implications of this discovery, including the Human Genome Project and the ethical questions that arise from modern genetic technology.