The Statue Within: An Autobiography - Softcover

Jacob, Francois

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0879694769 ISBN 13: 9780879694760

Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1995

Synopsis

In a new preface to this special edition of his critically acclaimed memoir, Francois Jacob recalls the events that brought him to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the early 1960's and taught him much about phage biology and the informal ways of American science. Throughout his book, Jacob demonstrates a scientist's eye for detail and a poet's instinct for the inner life, as he tells of a privileged Parisian boyhood, young love, heroism in war, and the fascination of life at the edge of scientific discovery.

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English, French (translation)

From Publishers Weekly:

A French biologist who views science as "the most elevating . . . revolt against the incoherence of the universe," Jacob won the 1965 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on gene regulation. This gripping, smoothly translated memoir records not only Jacob's professional achievements but seeks to reveal "the hardest kernel of his character," which he likens to an unfinished statue. Against a background of WW II and the dawn of DNA research, Jacob evokes and connects his former selvesthe solitary, imaginative, Parisian schoolboy, the groping adolescent and medical student, the Free French fighter in Africa and the severely wounded survivor who regained his health and discovered his vocation. Along with the intellectual ferment of the laboratory and exchanges with colleagues at international colloquia, Jacob surmises that the breadth of his personal experiences provided a philosophical urgency that contributed to his success as a scientist. A profound humanist, he describes genetic breakthroughs with the same elation as his Saharan battles and the wonder of parenthood.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0879694769
• ISBN 13: 9780879694760
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 326