The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics

Name: The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics
Author: Robin Marantz Henig
ISBN: 9781328868251

Robin Marantz Henig

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Robin Marantz Henig

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#2565 of 3,809 books · #924 in Biography & Memoir

Shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography (2000).

The Monk in the Garden was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. In The Monk in the Garden, Robin Marantz Henig vividly chronicles the birth of genetics, a field that continues to challenge the way we think about life itself. Tending to his pea plants in a monastery garden, the Moravian monk Gregor Mendel discovered the foundational principles of genetic inheritance. But Mendel's work was ignored during his lifetime, even though it answered the most pressing questions raised by Charles Darwin's revolutionary book, On the Origin of Species. Thirty-five years after his death, Mendel's work was saved from obscurity when three scientists from three different countries nearly simultaneously dusted off his groundbreaking paper and finally recognized its profound significance. From the perplexing silence that greeted his discovery to his ultimate canonization as the father of genetics, Henig presents a tale filled with intrigue, jealousy, and a healthy dose of bad timing.

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