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This book explores the development of hybrid corn, the history of eugenics, human genetics, the nature-nurture debate, the origins of the Marxian concept of proletarian science, the shift in the meaning of "fitness" in evolutionary theory, the practice of normal science in Nazi Germany, and the making and selling of science textbooks. While the topics are diverse, a common theme unites them - each explores links between biological science, social power, and public policy.

This landmark text analyzes the impact of human action on nature by linking the environmental degradation of ancient Mediterranean civilization to the United States of the 1800s. As profoundly topical today as it was in 1864.

The Nature of a Man is a reflective perspective of Alicia Forrester, a woman who is desperately seeking the love she lost as a child. Despite her magnificent beauty, despite her success, Alicia Forrester’s view of the woman in the mirror is one of disappointment, darkness, and despair. Her lack of self-love and her efforts to find it through the heart of a man leads her down the dark path of promiscuity, betrayal, and murder. She spends a lifetime battling the temptation of suicide. One day, the temptation becomes too great and she decides it is better to die in shame than to live in pain. She is found by her friends, characters from The Office Girls and The Nature of a Woman, and they rescue her from herself. Still unable to battle her demons, she makes several other suicidal attempts until she unwillingly confronts the source of pain that has haunted her throughout her life: her father. On his deathbed, he gives her the love she has sought and at that moment, the nature of a man is revealed. It is not from the reception from her father’s love, nor her husband’s love—it is through the acceptance of love for herself.

Philosophers have traditionally concentrated on the qualities that make human beings different from other species. In Beast and Man Mary Midgley, one of our foremost intellectuals, stresses continuities. What makes people tick? Largely, she asserts, the same things as animals. She tells us humans are rather more like other animals than we previously allowed ourselves to believe, and reminds us just how primitive we are in comparison to the sophistication of many animals. A veritable classic for our age, Beast and Man has helped change the way we think about ourselves and the world in which we live.