Generation Games: Genetic Engineering and the Future for Our Lives

Generation Games is a ground-breaking work in ecofeminism, biotechnology, and social ethics. Pat Spallone provides general readers with facts, issues, and ethical questions related to the genetic engineering of seeds, plants, microorganisms, animals, and people, particularly women in medical therapies. Synthesizing much of the history and commentary on biotechnology, she shows how genetic engineers mine and manage biological resources for applications that point to the increasing industrialization of life-forms.
The restructuring of nature dominates research in such crucial areas as human reproduction; the growth and distribution of food; the causes and control of medical conditions, from cancer to schizophrenia; the manufacture of drugs; and the development of weapons. Spallone explores the global political contests engendered by developments in plant genetics and manipulation of domestic livestock. She analyzes the increasing privatization of nature and nature's resources, as more plants and animals fall under the control of multinational corporations, and discusses the patenting of living things.
Viewing genetic engineering as a politically important subject, Spallone discusses what is being decided in the name of progress, who is benefiting from the "big science" that backs genetic engineering, and what are the likely outcomes for people and for our planet. In Generation Games she grapples with the complex relations between science and society.

Pat Spallone, a freelance researcher and writer associated with the Centre for Women's Studies at the University of York, previously worked as a biochemist in medical research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.