Samanth Subramanian

What a fantastic read this was! Samanth has woven together a gripping story using correspondences, science articles, books and every other relevant source he could lay his hands on. Perfection. It is not just Haldane's story alone, but a story of how the world influenced him and how he influenced the world. It is also science communication at its best: I learnt a lot about the fundamentals and evolution of genetics and other technological advancements accelerated by the wars. One of the striking features of Samanth's writing is his usage of metaphors. He did it even in his previous book "This Divided Island", and has proven once again that he's the master of metaphors. Here are two examples:

"[..] science advances not with the linearity of a locomotive but with a muddled gait of a drunk: with zags and zigs, with stumbles and hesitations and backslides, even if the overall direction of progress is forward." -p61

"A flawed paper was, for Haldane, so uncommon that it stuck out in his career of publications like an untuned trumpet in an orchestra." - p206… (mere)

This was an absolutely wonderful book about an absolutely fascinating man.

Subramanian does a great job of capturing Haldane's early influences, especially that of his father, and how they led him to the life of science and politics that he led. His curmugdeonly traits are here, of course, but they're presented kindly. Most of all, Haldane's relentless restless curiosity comes through.

The science in the book is very well reported -- clear for a lay audience, and accurate in the details of those fields I understand, so that I trust the details in those I don't. Subramanian must be a competent communicator of science himself, besides being a good biographer.

Haldane's marriages, his politics, his late love affair with India, and his shifting commitment to Communism and socialism over the course of his life were news to me. What I mostly knew about him was his extravagant experiments on his own body, in pursuit of the biological sciences. Those stories are here too, of course.

The book led me to re-read a number of Haldane's papers ("On Being the Right Size" is so good!), and reinforced my wish that I'd been able to meet the man.… (mere)

The maths of population genetics interested me since my undergraduate days in the 1980's and the contributions of Haldane seemed central to their development. His professional and personal life make for a fascinating read. His commitment to the scientific method is admirable, although, in his unadulterated formulation, may have lead down some unproductive political and personal paths. I've come to admire his holding to principles despite their consequences. You'll have to turn to other sources for a thorough review of his science, but this book does provide a serviceable sketch.… (mere)

I found this book fascinating, well written, and well organized. As a scientist working in genetics, I was already familiar with Haldane's foundational work. I found the additional information about his personality and non-professional life to be riveting and I look forward to using it as a lens to reexamine his work in the future. But I suspect many of the scientific details included in the book, particularly about theories of natural selection and population genetics (my own field), are more detailed than the average reader would prefer, and not explained in general enough terms for their full understanding.… (mere)