A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane [Hardcover] SAMANTH SUBRAMANIAN

Samanth manages to bring together - in an easy reading narrative - the complex life and beliefs of a fascinating character and the evolution of the science of genetics. Never felt overwhelmed by either the history, life story or the science - perfectly balanced 330 odd pages. Highly recommended!

My father used to mention JBS Halden often. I knew he was a pugnacious scientist with left leanings. Beyond that I knew nothing and never had time to fill in the gaps. 'A dominant character' is exactly what I needed. I found it very absorbing. It is a good biography with the necessary detachment to bring out the personality of this special man.I borrowed the book from British Library first and then ordered a copy as a gift for a relative.

Wonderfully written! Samanth manages to overcome the obvious difficulty of writing about someone long since gone and yet make the person relatable and give insight into the person!

Subramanian writes in his usual usual absorbing and refreshing style. The narrative is always interesting, and rarely lets down. The book is sympathetic to Haldane, while at the same time capturing the many flaws that maketh the man. It is at once a wholesome introduction to the curious intersection of science and politics in the early 20th century, a remarkable portrait of an extraordinary character, and an exciting story, replete with gripping anecdotes - that must ideally be devoured in one long, delightful sitting.

Journalists hunt for the bad side of people. That is how this bio has been written. Very much less on the contribution to science and much about gossips of personal character.

Bought this because I was a technical diver at the time and wanted the history of the guy behind the Haldane decompression tables and his involvement with the Royal Navy diving regs. However, this book is so much more. His father's involvement plus their heroic behaviour, recklessly experimenting on themselves before exposing others. Amazing book.

There are some interesting sections about the conflict between Haldane the scientist and Haldane the devoted communist. But most of the text is just gossip. I hoped to find a review of his theories but found none.

When a science book does well in the mainstream press, the science content is often weak. In this biography of geneticist J. B. S. Haldane, Samanth Subramanian manages to get enough science in to make it worthwhile as popular science, but also piles on the biographical details, particularly on Haldane's political side, which unusually for a scientist dominated his life.Haldane, it seems, was a classic posh boy who thinks he knows what's good for working folk - a communist who quoted the classics - and along with his irascible, blunt (well, rude really) personality, delight in shocking others and apparent enthusiasm for the dangers of warfare, comes across as a fascinating, if sometimes repulsive study (on the whole, Subramanian takes a more forgiving view, though without holding back on Haldane's faults).Apart from his decades-long enthusiasm for the Soviet Union and ruthless (and fearless) approach to military life, we see how Haldane's science brought huge strides in the very early days of genetics, when they didn't yet really know what a gene was, but could deduce aspects of what was happening mathematically. In what was at the time a very descriptive science, Haldane always brought mathematical rigour. Although there's a bit of a dip in the book around the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, where the writing droops a bit, generally this is put across in a truly engaging fashion - if it weren't for this dip, the book would get a solid five stars.Subramanian has clearly put a huge amount of effort in, going into extravagant detail, such as checking bank statements, to uncover the minutiae of Haldane's life. It's a shame the same care wasn't applied to finding out about the University of Cambridge. At one point we read that Haldane's future first wife, Charlotte 'killed time, walking around the campus...' - despite living several years in Cambridge, I never found a campus. We are also told that the university did not award Haldane a fellowship at Trinity College - missing that that's down to Trinity, not the university. There is also a large chunk of the early part of the book on Haldane's father - certainly interesting in his own right, but too much for me: I wanted to get onto the subject. And though much of Haldane's science is covered, I would have liked some more exploration of what the science actually meant, perhaps at the expense of a touch less verbiage on his political life.A good book then, to find out more about a figure that most who are interested in science will have heard of as a name, but probably without much appreciation of either exactly what his scientific work covered, or how much he was a dupe of Moscow for a significant part of his life. At one point in the 1940s, when Lysenko was destroying Soviet science (and scientists), Haldane took part in a BBC radio broadcast where he used weasel words to defend the Soviet stance, putting his politics above his scientific and humanitarian side. A flawed, interesting character who, despite at the time being up there with the big names of science internationally, is now largely forgotten by the general public in a way that far less substantial literary types of the period, such as the Bloomsbury set, aren't.

Having read JBS's articles in the Daily Worker as a child, it is great to read such an understanding biography of the man himself. The book brilliantly places JBS in the context of his time and the subjects he investigated.

A very readable book, describing Haldane and his life extremely well. Highly recommended for those who have nor read Ronald Clark's 1984 biography.