In Masterminding Nature, Margaret Derry examines the evolution of modern animal breeding from the invention of improved breeding methodologies in eighteenth-century England to the application of molecular genetics in the 1980s and 1990s. A clear and concise introduction to the science and practice of artificial selection, Derry’s book puts the history of breeding in its scientific, commercial, and social context.

Masterminding Nature explains why animal breeders continued to use eighteenth-century techniques well into the twentieth century, why the chicken industry was the first to use genetics in its breeding programs, and why it was the dairy cattle industry that embraced quantitative genetics and artificial insemination in the 1970s, as well as answering many other questions. Following the story right up to the present, the book concludes with an insightful analysis of today’s complex relationships between biology, industry, and ethics.

Margaret E. Derry is an adjunct professor in the Department of History at the University of Guelph, and an associated scholar wth the Institute for History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto.

Margaret Derry's profile page

‘The book offers a gold mine of information for historians of breeding and of the agricultural sciences more generally, and several of its overreaching themes are potentially of interest to a wider range of historians.’

Isis Journal September 2016

‘Masterminding Nature is an ambitious and a valuable contribution to the literature.’

Endeavour vol 30:10:2016

‘This is a historian with deep and personal fascination for the world of animal breeding… There is much information in this book. It can be used as a reference for the key movements, ideas and people in the history of animal breeding.’

The British Journal for the History of Science vol 49:01:2016

‘This is a richly informative book that draws on Derry’s academic training and long experience as practical breeder.’

Agricultural History vol 90:01:2016

‘Masterminding Nature is an informative account of the various innovations that have marked the livestock industry.’

Business History Review vol 90:01:2016