Subramaniam reveals the histories of eugenics and genetics and their impact on the metaphorical understandings of difference and diversity that permeate common understandings of differences among people exist in contexts that seem distant from the so-called objective hard sciences. Journeying into interdisciplinary areas that range from the social history of plants to speculative fiction, Subramaniam uncovers key relationships between the life sciences, women's studies, evolutionary and invasive biology, and the history of ecology, and how ideas of diversity and difference emerged and persist in each field.

A landmark work of nineteenth-century developmental and evolutionary biology that takes the Darwinian struggle for existence into the organism itself.

Though he is remembered primarily as a pioneer of experimental embryology, Wilhelm Roux was also a groundbreaking evolutionary theorist. Years before his research on chicken and frog embryos cemented his legacy as an experimentalist, Roux endorsed the radical idea that a “struggle for existence” within organisms—between organs, tissues, cells, and even subcellular components—drives individual development.

Convinced that external competition between individuals is inadequate to explain the exquisite functionality of bodily parts, Roux aimed to uncover the mechanistic principles underlying self-organization. The Struggle of Parts was his attempt to provide such a theory. Combining elements of Darwinian selection and Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics, the work advanced a materialist explanation of how “purposiveness” within the organism arises as the body’s components compete for space and nourishment. The result, according to Charles Darwin, was “the most important book on evolution which has appeared for some time.”

Translated into English for the first time by evolutionary biologist David Haig and Richard Bondi, The Struggle of Parts represents an important forgotten chapter in the history of developmental and evolutionary theory.

Aging and cancer may be manifestations of genetic, or epigenetic, changes in somatic cells. Through research, laboratory analysis of these related processes has become possible. Cells can be removed from the body, kept warm in laboratory glassware, nourished by artificial solutions, and studied for years, or even decades. Two types of cultures have emerged: Primary cultures, grown from cells obtained directly from living animals, may grow well for generations, but ultimately cease to divide. Established cultures, on the other hand, may grow and divide indefinitely. It is a striking fact that most, if not all, established cultures consist of cells that are heteroploid, having an abnormal chromosome complement that may include structural rearrangements as well as abnormalities of chromosome number.

Most established cultures are also neoplastic on behavior and morphology—in this, they resemble cancers—and established cultures are, in fact, often grown from cancer cells. Interest in the role of chromosomes in neoplasia has recently been overshadowed by an emphasis on tumor viruses. This book should reawaken the former interest. It will also arouse new interest in the role of epigenetic mechanisms of animal cells, in contrast to the classic genetic processes. As Dr. John Littlefield writes: “The relationship between the overcoming of senescence, the appearance of heteroploidy, and the acquisition of neoplastic qualities is not yet clear, but it is of such great theoretical and practical importance as to demand attention and new ideas.”