Richard Lewontin in English in Italy

January 4, 2006 7:58 AM

Turns out that I need to access some of the works of Richard Lewontin for some research that I'm doing. Problem is, I'm in Venice Italy at the moment, and I'd need Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA, The Dialectical Biologist and/or It Ain't Necessarily So: The Dream of the Human Genome and other Illusions ASAP! Does anybody know where they might be available online as a full-text eBook or how else I might be able to purchase an English copy right away? (Unfortunately, as luck would have it, IBS.it and Amazon wouldn't be quick enough...) Thanks in advance!!
posted by Misciel to writing & language (4 comments total)

How soon is "ASAP" - within 24 hours? 48 hours?

Would these books be available in the U.K. from a good used-book bookseller? If so, what about using a same-day courier?

As for eBooks, older books typically aren't available as such - there simply isn't enough demand to justify the work needed to create an e-text. (For new books, it's just a matter of reformatting easily-available text; still, most new books aren't available in that format.)

For example, Biology as Ideology : The Doctrine of DNA, is a 1991 book (reprinted in 1993, paperback), and amazon.com shows no ebook edition.

And unfortunately google book search appears not to have any of these three books.
posted by WestCoaster at 10:17 AM on January 4, 2006

have you tried Venice university library for english copies?

i have Biology as Ideology (and, fwiw, Triple Helix). If there's a short series of pages that you know what you're looking for specifically (chapters in BaI are very short) i'd be happy to scan & email them for you. My email address is in my profile.
posted by tnai at 10:47 AM on January 4, 2006

If you can't even wait for over-night delivery it sounds like you dropped the ball somewhere. If you're willing you can get immediate access to Biology as Ideology and It Ain't Necessarily So through Amazon Search Inside. You can get about 30 or so pages per book per account before it cuts you off. What you need to do is either read selectively what you think you'll need by searching skillfully, or if you really do need to read through the books entirely (unlikely, since you're so strapped for time), you need multiple credit cards so you can make 4-8 different Amazon accounts. I'd bet you can do the former though, for whatever you're writing.

Can't help you on the Dialectical Biologist, though the Problem of Lysekoism chapter is online, and the book is quoted in a number of other books you can Search Inside.
posted by dgaicun at 10:48 AM on January 4, 2006

also, you might want to try the p2p networks. sometimes pdf's of books turn up on that aren't available commercially as ebooks. as for how accurately they've been OCR'ed is a different matter...
posted by tnai at 10:51 AM on January 4, 2006