Review
"Meticulously detailed. Nelson adds another chapter to the somber history of injustice toward African-Americans, but it is one in which science is enriching lives by forging new identities and connections to ancestral homelands."
--Kirkus Reviews
"One of this generation's most gifted scholars examines the unfolding mysteries of DNA sequencing and the limits and promises of genetic genealogy at the intersection of race, politics and identity. Alondra Nelson brilliantly guides us on a journey of discovery in this cautionary tale of the high-stakes efforts to reconcile our racial origins and to find redemption as a country.Eye-opening, provocative and deeply humane."
--Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns
"Alondra Nelson takes us into a complex and endlessly fascinating space where genetic ancestry testing meets racial politics. With her unique and wonderful gifts for research and insight into genetic science, ethnography and history, The Social Life of DNA comes at a moment when the questions it raises about race and social justice couldn't be more pressing and urgent."
--Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
"Nelson explores this large, sprawling, fascinating subject with clarity,passion, rigor, and a keen eye for revealing detail. The Social Life of DNA will appeal to a broad readership interested in history, race, and science. Geneticists,sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and jurists will be stimulated by reading this book. It is a brilliant work."
--Randall Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School and authorof The Persistence of the Color Line
"Alondra Nelson tells a story for anyone interested in their own family, even their own memory. Using fresh genetics research and writing like an investigative reporter, Nelson clears up the mystery about our society's rush to DNA."
--Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family
"'The double helix now lies at the center of some of the most significant issues of our time,' Alondra Nelson writes in this valuable and illuminating book. Since 2003, she has been following the ways that DNA intertwines with race, and The Social Life of DNA is her clear-eyed, sharp, and closely observed account of the phenomenon. It couldn't be more timely."
--Jonathan Weiner, Maxwell M. Geffen Professor of Medical and Scientific Journalism at Columbia Journalism School
"Alondra Nelson's account of how genetic data was transformed into contested political culture is a lucid as it is path-breaking. This exhilarating survey of how DNA became an agent in the politics of reparation and reconciliation has not only extended analysis of race and racism but created a new field of comparative research."
--Paul Gilroy, professor of American and English literature, King's College, London
"The Social Life of DNA is a brilliant ethnography of the recreational uses of DNA. Besieged as our culture has become by beguiling promises of romantic heraldry and forensic infallibility, Nelson takes an unflinching yet sympathetic look at how popular yearning for 'lost roots' has led to DNA as metaphor: 'reading' our genes has become an inferential, often scientifically unsubstantiated link between past,present and future. It has emerged as the symbolic grounding for magical cures,heritage tourism, escapist fantasy, as well as legal actions for ethnic and racial reconciliation, reparations and repatriation. Timely and original, this book offers a nuanced and engrossing negotiation between genetic truth and 'truthiness.'" --Patricia J. Williams, James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University and columnist for The Nation
About the Author
Alondra Nelson is professor of sociology and gender studies at Columbia University, where she served as the inaugural Dean of Social Science. She is author of the award-winning book Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Science, Boston Globe, and the Guardian. She lives in New York City.
