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==Context==
The book's author, [[Matt Ridley]], is a British journalist and businessman, known for writing on science, the environment, and economics.<ref>{{cite web| publisher=Real Clear Science |date=August 2013| url=http://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2013/08/08/the_worlds_top_thought_leaders_106624.html | title=World's top thought leaders}}</ref> He studied zoology, gaining his [[DPhil]] in 1983.<ref name=dphil>{{cite thesis |degree=DPhil |publisher=University of Oxford |title=Mating system of the pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) |first=Matthew White |last=Ridley |date=1983 |url=http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph013858922 |oclc=52225811 }}{{dead link|date=October 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
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==Reception==
''Genome'' has been reviewed in scientific journals including ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]''<ref name=Kealey>{{cite journal |last1=Kealey |first1=Terence |title=Book Review Genome:The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters |journal=Nature |date=2000 |volume=24 |issue=21 |doi=10.1038/71638 |url=http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v24/n1/full/ng0100_21.html}}</ref> and in medical journals such as the ''[[New England Journal of Medicine]]'', where Robert Schwartz notes that Ridley speculates, "sometimes wildly".<ref name=Schwartz>{{cite journal |last1=Schwartz|first1=Robert S. |title=Book Review Genome: The autobiography of a species in 23 chapters |journal=New England Journal of Medicine |date=2000 |volume=342 |page=1763 |doi=10.1056/NEJM200006083422321 |url=http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200006083422321#t=article}}</ref> The book is a "gambol" through the human chromosomes. All the same, Schwartz writes, the book is "instructive, challenging, and fun to read. I envy Ridley's talent for presenting, without condescension, complex sets of facts and ideas in terms comprehensible to outsiders."<ref name=Schwartz/>
Lee M. Silver, reviewing ''Genome'' in ''[[The New York Times]]'', argues that the book's theme is that each individual's genome contains "echoes" (Ridley's word) of their ancestors' lives. Silver calls Ridley "adamant" in believing that the use of "personal genetics" must not be left for doctors or governments to control, following on from the mistakes of [[eugenics]] a century ago, but that it's a fundamental human right to "see and use the messages in their own DNA as they see fit." Silver describes the book as remarkable for focusing on "pure intellectual discovery", providing "delightful stories". He suggests that even practising geneticists will gain a sense of wonder from the "hidden secrets" in the book.<ref name=Silver>{{cite news |last1=Silver |first1=Lee M. |title=Map of Life |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/02/27/reviews/000227.27silvert.html?mcubz=3 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=27 February 2000}}</ref>
The biologist [[Jerry Coyne]], writing in the ''[[London Review of Books]]'', criticises ''Genome'' as "at once instructive and infuriating. For each nugget of science, Ridley also includes an error or misrepresentation. Some of these derive from poor scholarship: others from his political agenda."<ref name=Coyne>{{cite journal |last1=Coyne |first1=Jerry |title=Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley |journal=London Review of Books |date=27 April 2000 |volume=22 |issue=9 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n09/jerry-coyne/not-an-inkling}}</ref> For example, Coyne mentions Ridley's incorrect claim that "half of your IQ is inherited";<ref name=Coyne/> that Ridley assumes that the marker used by Robert Plomin, IGF2R, is the purported "intelligence gene"<ref name=Coyne/> that it marks; and that social influences on behaviour [always] work by switching genes on and off, something that Coyne states is "occasionally true".<ref name=Coyne/> Coyne argues that Ridley is an "implacable"<ref name=Coyne/> genetic determinist, denying the influence of the environment, and calling his politics "right-wing".<ref name=Coyne/> He calls the book's structure "eccentric"<ref name=Coyne/> and "bizarre",<ref name=Coyne/> the chapters matching the 23 pairs of human chromosomes, and notes that ''Genome'' is the third of Ridley's books that "tries to popularise" [[evolutionary psychology]].<ref name=Coyne/>
The science writer [[Michael Shermer]] finds Ridley's technique "at once clever and delimiting: Each chapter represents a chromosome, for which he has chosen a single entity supposedly determined or influenced by that chromosome."<ref name=Shermer>{{cite web |last1=Shermer |first1=Michael |authorlink=Michael Shermer |title=The Metagene Gene |url=https://michaelshermer.com/2001/01/the-metagene-gene/ |publisher=[originally in
==Awards and distinctions==
''Genome'' was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2000.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Samuel Johnson Prize |url=http://thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/books/genome-autobiography-species-23-chapters-4th-estate-by |date=2000}}</ref>
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