Making of Memory: From Molecules to Mind
By, Rose, Steven
Publisher: Random House
Class No.: 612.82 ROS
Accession No.: 012467
Year: 2003
Pages: 420 p.

Of the week: 19th Feb. to 25th Feb., 2007

Steven Rose’s The Making of Memory is about just that, in both its senses: the biological processes by with we humans - and other animals - learn and remember, and how researchers can explore these mechanisms. But it is also about much more. When the first edition of this fascinating book won the Rhone-Poulenc Science Prize in 1993, the judges described it as ‘a riveting read…a first-hand account by a practicing scientist working at the forefront of medical research - and rose does not duck the issues which that raises’. Now ten years on, research has itself moved forward, and Rose has taken the opportunity to fully revise the book. But this is more than mere revision. Where ten years ago he argued the case for research on memory because it is the most extraordinary of human attributes, Rose’s own research has now opened the doors to a potential new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, undreamed of a decade ago, and in an entirely new chapter he describes how this potential breakthrough has occurred.