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9780226437132

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Reviews

""Kingsbury's account should be required reading for students preparing for a future as a plant breeder, geneticist, or molecular biologist. Fortunately, that requirement should prove unnecessary - the book is engaging at many levels, and I expect many scientists and lay readers to pick it up on their own accord."" (Science) ""This engaging history of the genetic milestones and individuals that have shaped the field helps to fill a long-standing gap."" (Choice) ""Apart from the amazing factual content, [Hybrid] is also a tale of human endeavour that will fascinate all those who love a good story, and one that I know I shall want to return to time and again."" (English Gardener) ""The scope of this well-researched book is stunning; it is apparent that the work was a labor of love. Kingsbury is thorough, and each chapter is a rewarding feast of narrative and information.... Hybrid is a masterful work by an admirably ambitious author."" (American Gardener) ""Shoppers who shun genetically modified foods in favor of 'natural' fruits and veggies may be in for a surprise. Horticulturalist Kingsbury's lively history documents the history of human meddling with plant genes since the dawn of agriculture."" (Discover)""

Kingsbury's account should be required reading for students preparing for a future as a plant breeder, geneticist, or molecular biologist. Fortunately, that requirement should prove unnecessary - the book is engaging at many levels, and I expect many scientists and lay readers to pick it up on their own accord. (Science) This engaging history of the genetic milestones and individuals that have shaped the field helps to fill a long-standing gap. (Choice) Apart from the amazing factual content, [Hybrid] is also a tale of human endeavour that will fascinate all those who love a good story, and one that I know I shall want to return to time and again. (English Gardener) The scope of this well-researched book is stunning; it is apparent that the work was a labor of love. Kingsbury is thorough, and each chapter is a rewarding feast of narrative and information.... Hybrid is a masterful work by an admirably ambitious author. (American Gardener) Shoppers who shun genetically modified foods in favor of 'natural' fruits and veggies may be in for a surprise. Horticulturalist Kingsbury's lively history documents the history of human meddling with plant genes since the dawn of agriculture. (Discover)

In plant breeding, just as in evolution, genetic variety is the raw material of success. Hybrid is the story of how the genes that make a fat corn cob, a luscious apple, a brilliantly orange carrot or a high yielding strain of rice have traveled by serpentine paths to reach the genomes of the crops that we so depend on and yet so take for granted. In Hybrid we learn that there was a green revolution in eleventh-century China when a visionary emperor imported new strains of rice from Indochina; how working men in nineteenth-century Britain made a sport of competitive gooseberry breeding, and how a German doctor discovered hybrid vigor in plants. Hybrid the book displays, like hybrids themselves, all the marvelous fruit of miscellany. --Jonathan Silvertown, author of An Orchard Invisible: A Natural History of Seeds <br>--Jonathan Silvertown

Author Information

Noel Kingsbury is a horticulturalist and the author of many books, including Designing with Plants and Natural Gardening in Small Spaces, and coeditor of Vista: The Culture and Politics of Gardens.

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