The question has been asked for many centuries, and has produced recipes ranging from the clay golem of Jewish legend to the mass-produced test-tube babies in Brave New World. Unnatural delves beneath the surface of the cultural history of 'anthropoeia' - the artificial creation of people - to explore what it tells us about our views on life, humanity, creativity and technology, and the soul. Philip Ball traces the threads that link the legendary inventor Daedalus, Goethe's tragic Faust, the automata-making magicians of E.T.A. Hoffman and Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein. He argues that these old tales and myths are alive and well, subtly manipulating the current debates about assisted conception, embryo research and human cloning, which have at last made the idea of 'making people' into flesh and blood reality.
Recommend this book
Add your recommendation
Only registered users can recommend books. Please use the buttons below to either create a new account, or sign-in to an existing account.
Unnatural is a beautifully written, deeply intelligent book that will force every reader to rethink at least some of their preconceptions - Sunday Telegraph
The two cultures of science and art are not antagonists, divergent in their aims and mutually unintelligible: they happily cohabit inside Ball's compendious, eclectic head. - Observer
A brave, sane and intellectually nimble account of a topic which only gets more ambiguous with each scientific advance. Unnatural is fascinating and engaging, and a polemic only for cool heads and open hearts when dealing with issues of such serious and profound complexity - Scotland on Sunday
Meticulous, witty and sometimes provocative - Sunday Times
Labelling Ball a science writer sells his writing short, for its value lies above all in a range that dissolves the awkward silences between science and the larger culture of which it is part. - Independent
Philip Ball presents the ethical dilemmas, ancient and modern, with intelligence and assurance - The Times
Fascinating book - Evening Standard
Ball's thoughtful book is a reminder that as we try and deal with how to enable and assist people into being, we need to understand and then conquer our fears surrounding the very idea of making people. - Guardian
Ball's assiduously science-literature approach is very welcome - The Word
Fascinating - Scotsman
If Ball's book is an entertaining romp across centuries and genres, it also has a target...What Ball does so effectively...is to show why language and stories matter- in effect, why humanities matter - Times Literary Supplement
The most polymathic science writer of our time - Independent, Books of the Year
Philip Ball is a writer and contributor to Nature, where he previously worked as an editor for physical sciences. He writes regularly in the scientific and popular media, often combining the arenas of science and art, and delivers lectures with equal success at NASA and the V&A Museum. His many books include The Self-Made Tapestry, H2O: A Biography of Water, The Devil's Doctor, Critical Mass (winner of the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books), Universe of Stone, Nature's Patterns and, most recently, the acclaimed The Music Instinct. Philip obtained a PhD in physics from the University of Bristol.
