The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology

Unavailable in the U.S. for many years, Horace Judson's remarkable lay history of molecular biology is now published in a new, expanded edition. The author has added new material on some of the principal figures involved, particularly Rosalind Franklin. Also included are a new Forward and an Afterword which sketches the further development of molecular biology into the era of recombinant DNA. No one active in current molecular genetics can fail to be informed and entertained by this extraordinary account of how it all began. Also highly recommended for students and interested lay people.

In the foreword to this expanded edition of his 1979 masterpiece, Horace Freeland Judson says, "I feared I might seem the official historian of the movement"--molecular biology, that is. If by official he means "authoritative; definitive; the standard against which all others are measured" then his fears are warranted. Detailed without being overly technical, humane without being fulsome, The Eighth Day of Creation tells of molecular biology's search for the secret of life. "The drama has everything--exploration of the unknown; low comedy and urgent seriousness; savage competition, vaulting intelligence, abrupt changes of fortune, sudden understandings; eccentric and brilliant people, men of honor and of less than honor; a heroine, perhaps wronged; and a treasure to be achieved that was unique and transcendent." And in Judson this drama found its Shakespeare.