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Nature Remade: Engineering Life, Envisioning Worlds

edited by Luis A. Campos, Michael R. Dietrich, Tiago Saraiva and Christian C. Young

University of Chicago Press, 2021
Paper: 978-0-226-78343-7 | Cloth: 978-0-226-78326-0 | eISBN: 978-0-226-78357-4
Library of Congress Classification TA164.N39 2021
Dewey Decimal Classification 660.6

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK
“Engineering” has firmly taken root in the entangled bank of biology even as proposals to remake the living world have sent tendrils in every direction, and at every scale. Nature Remade explores these complex prospects from a resolutely historical approach, tracing cases across the decades of the long twentieth century. These essays span the many levels at which life has been engineered: molecule, cell, organism, population, ecosystem, and planet. From the cloning of agricultural crops and the artificial feeding of silkworms to biomimicry, genetic engineering, and terraforming, Nature Remade affirms the centrality of engineering in its various forms for understanding and imagining modern life. Organized around three themes—control and reproduction, knowing as making, and envisioning—the chapters in Nature Remade chart different means, scales, and consequences of intervening and reimagining nature.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Luis A. Campos is the Baker College Chair of the History of Science, Technology, and Innovation at Rice University. He is the author of Radium and the Secret of Life, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Michael R. Dietrich is professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh. Most recently, he is coeditor of Dreamers, Visionaries and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Tiago Saraiva is associate professor of history at Drexel University. He is the author of Fascist Pigs: Technoscientific Organisms and the History of Fascism. Christian C. Young is professor of biology at Alverno College. Most recently, he is coeditor of Evolution and Creationism: A Documentary and Reference Guide.

REVIEWS

“From rats and pigs to oranges and rice, humans have been engineering life in the field and in the laboratory for centuries. Like all engineering, this remaking of life has been accompanied by ideals and visions of possible futures, some sublime, others menacing. The informed ensemble of essays in Nature Remade takes this visioneering seriously by exploring a diverse set of activities around control of nature, knowing as making, and the envisioning of biological futures. As the reader travels the planet, moving from contested fruit groves in Palestine to Cold War nuclear test sites in the Pacific, one encounters a superb set of histories that reconnoiters the shifting boundaries between engineering, science, and art.”

— W. Patrick McCray, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of "Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture"

“Once again, the contributors to the Convening Science: Discovery at the Marine Biological Laboratory series have crafted an illuminating volume that advances historical understanding of the life sciences. Whether manipulating life at the level of the molecule, cell, organism, population, ecosystem, or entire planet, biologist-engineers and allied researchers can dream big but must consider multiple constraints when designing, implementing, and maintaining projects meant to solve perceived problems. Like traditional engineers, they must also cultivate strong stakeholder relationships, deploy technologies appropriately, try to anticipate failure, and learn from unintended outcomes. By analyzing a diverse array of twentieth- and twenty-first-century initiatives, both actualized and envisioned, the authors of Nature Remade make a strong collective case for interpreting experimental biology through an engineering lens.”

— Christine Keiner, Rochester Institute of Technology, author of "Deep Cut: Science, Power, and the Unbuilt Interoceanic Canal"

"Focusing on the impacts of engineering on topics as varied as laboratory techniques and geopolitical policy, the collection achieves expansiveness in subject and coherence in argument, a rare accomplishment for an edited volume… Nature Remade is well written and well edited. The volume’s wide range of topics covered contributes to its broad appeal, while its thoughtful structure binds seemingly disparate essays together nicely. Such histories are timely as the life sciences increasingly approach problems, from genome editing to climate control, from an engineering perspective."

— Science

"Engineering applied to biology provokes fascination and apprehension. This essay collection explores that tension on scales ranging from molecules to people to planet, across eras and cultures. The editors—three historians and a biologist—aim to show that every effort at remaking nature 'inescapably occurs in a particular social and political milieu.' Original examples include orange cultivation in Palestinian identity and the African American scholars who explored 'black eugenics.'"

— Nature

"Many contributions to this unusual collection are from scholars in the humanities, who nevertheless bring interesting material to bear on areas of experimental biology and biotechnology. . .. Especially interesting is the contribution charting the rise and decline of Michael Crichton's 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain as a frequent reference for scientists, politicians, journalists, and the public when discussing extraterrestrial contamination and genetic engineering (by Luis Campos) . . .. The contributions considered as a whole make this a generally informative if controversial volume. Recommended."

— Choice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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