Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age
Bill McKibben

List Price:   $25.00

Hardcover: 288 pages

Publisher: Times Books; (April 2003)

ISBN: 0805070966

Other Editions: Paperback | Audio Cassette (Abridged) | Audio CD (Abridged) | Audio Download (Audible.com) | All Editions

Read this book immediately.  This is a frightening warning about two technologies that McKibben writes are potentially dangerous:  human germline genetic engineering and nanotechnology.  After reading this book I immediately went to read Michael Crichton’s Prey.  It’s a good exercise in bioethics.  JdK

Nature Via Nurture : Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human
Matt Ridley (Author)

List Price:   $25.95

Hardcover: 336 pages

Publisher: HarperCollins; (April 29, 2003)

ISBN: 0060006781

Ridley is an excellent author and this book is much more than another addition to the Nature VERSUS Nurture debate.  JdK

Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution
by Francis Fukuyama (Author)

List Price:   $14.00

Paperback: 272 pages

Publisher: Picador USA; (May 2003)

ISBN: 0312421710

In-Print Editions: Hardcover (1st) | e-book (Microsoft Reader) | e-book (Adobe Reader) | All Editions

Fukuyama wrote his book “The End of History” about the triumph liberal democracy and dispelled criticism after criticism except the one that said, “history will not end as long as science continues.”   That began him thinking about the impact of this technology on the fundamentals of being human.  JdK

The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World
Jeremy Rifkin (Introduction)

List Price:   $13.95

Paperback: 271 pages

Publisher: J. P. Tarcher; (April 1999)

ISBN: 0874779537

Other Editions: Hardcover | All Editions

Lawyer Rifkin emerged in the late ‘70's and 80's as the leading critic of the biotech field. Although you might think that he’s guilty of excesses, he makes a good “devil’s advocate.”  I wish that I could write as well as he does.  If nothing else, he has underscored the importance of this field.  As far as I know, he’s the first person to call the 21^st century “the Biotech Century,” but the designation is probably accurate.    JdK