The story begins in an Augustinian abbey in 1856, and takes the reader from Darwin?s groundbreaking theory of evolution, to the horrors of Nazi eugenics, to present day and beyond - as we learn to ?read? and ?write? the human genome that unleashes the potential to change the fates and identities of our children. Majestic in its scope and ambition, The Gene provides us with a definitive account of the epic history of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans ? and paints a fascinating vision of both humanity?s past and future.