Molecular biology, like particle physics and other fields of science, has a social and political history that is filled with contentious debates about who did what to whom and who gets credit for what. Was the arrival of molecular biology "evolution" or "revolution?" What were the roles of the physicists, chemists, and geneticists? Was traditional biology overthrown - or taken over - by new disciplines? Or was it merely expanded as knowledge increased? And who, other than Francis Crick and James Watson, the two names most familiar to the general public, should get credit for transforming biology?

In his book A History of Molecular Biology, biochemist Michel Morange writes with a participant's insight. Morange doesn't approach any of these issues with enough depth to resolve them, but he does describe the disputes and bruised egos as bacterial geneticists, biochemists, and other specialists jockeyed for the dominant position in the molecular revolution - or evolution.

Morange deals at length with the influence that particle physicists brought to molecular biology at the close of World War II. Renowned physicists such as Leo Szilard, Erwin Schrodinger, Niels Bohr, and George Gamow all made serious contributions to the field of molecular biology. Gamow, one of the originators of the Big Bang theory, not only read articles by Crick and Watson on DNA structure, but wrote to them proposing a theoretical approach for deciphering the genetic code.

Morange pays particular attention to Schrodinger's visionary book What is Life?, published in 1944. Schrodinger suggested that quantum mechanics would be able to explain genetics. In his farsighted vision, Morange says, Schrodinger saw genes "merely as containers of information, as a code that determines the formation of the individual."

Morange moves from the early influence of physicists to the key role that research grants from the Rockefeller Foundation played in the growth of molecular biology. The foundation "certainly played an important role in the development of a molecular approach to biology that was based on the use of the techniques of chemistry and physics," the author says.

He also covers the discovery of the double helix in 1953, the efforts to decipher the genetic code, the discovery of messenger RNA, and the 1983 development by Kary Mullis of polymerase chain reaction, which is used to make multiple copies of a DNA strand. Morange concludes with a discussion of molecular biology's place in the life sciences. "Molecular biology did not resign itself to having to live with other biological disciplines," he says. "It entered into a far more intimate relationship with them."

Morange ends with his thoughts on the relationship between molecular biology and evolutionary theory. "What has molecular biology brought to the understanding of the mechanisms of evolution?" he asks. Virtually nothing, for the simple reason that the two disciplines have not interacted. A convergence between "molecular biology and theories of evolution will be one of the major scientific events of the early twenty-first century," he concludes.

In his introduction, Morange says that his aim was to "write a book on the history of science that could be read by the general public." He also notes that "even a short stay in a biology laboratory will show that biological material is difficult to work with. . . ." While the book is very good, for the general reader a journey into Morange's text is similar to a visit to a biology laboratory - filled, by necessity, with biological material that is difficult to work with.

What Morange does with this history is admirable. He takes the reader on a fast-paced tour that begins with the roots of molecular biology in the 1940s and proceeds up through the development of PCR, in 1983 - all in a mere 252 pages.

But because Morange is moving apace through his subject matter, the book's value depends very much on the reader's background. Professional biologists will find the book an interesting summary of the last 60 years of biological science, as it is more an intelligent and fair narration of the development of molecular biology than it is a full-blown history. Those who can place the events in the book in a deeper context will get the most out of it.

For readers comfortable with science but not steeped in biology, the book is more of a challenge, best read with a biology dictionary at hand. Those without any knowledge of biology - who don't know anything about ribosomes, nucleotides, or mRNA - won't have a clue about what Morange is talking about most of the time. And without a familiarity with the players and the interplay between them, the book will feel more like a series of sketches than a complete history.

Despite Morange's intention, he has not written a book for the "general public." That isn't a severe criticism, just a clearer definition of the book.

Morange, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Paris VI and the Ecole Normale Superieure, published a French edition of A History of Molecular Biology in 1994; this edition, by Harvard University Press, is a translation by Matthew Cobb.

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