This highly topical and and fascinating book deals essentially with the historical roots of biotechnology. Pauly weaves a rich fabric by integrating Loeb's career and his ideas into the social and political world of science and medicine in late 19th century Germany and early 20th century America...Recommended for college and university history of science collections.

• Introduction; The shaping of a biologist; The engineering standpoint; New American environments; Evolution and experimentation; The invention of artificial parthenogenesis; Investigating animal behavior; The problems of a mechanistic conception of life; The Loebian influence in American biology; Notes; Key to manuscript citations; Index; Photographs.