Promotional Information

The differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes are much more deep and fundamental than, for example, those between higher animals and higher plants. Numerous facts, especially those from cytology of simplest eukaryotic organisms, support the views of Kozo-Polyansky-Margulis. The eukaryotic cell, compared to a prokaryotic cell, is already rather some sort of "supercell." A specific "assembly" of a complex eukaryotic system from already largely "prefabricated parts" took place during the process of evolution. -- Armen Takhtajan, Komarov Botanical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences How could this book not have been a part of evolutionary biology since its publication in 1924? ...What a difference it would have in the "evolutionary synthesis" if this book were easily in the hands of biologists in German or English translation! -- William Provine, Cornell University

About the Author

Boris Mikhaylovich Kozo-Polyansky (1890–1957) graduated from Moscow University and in 1918 joined a Soviet university in his native Voronezh where he became a vice-president as well as director of the local botanical garden. Victor Fet is Professor of Biology at Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia. Lynn Margulis was Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. Peter H. Raven is George Engelmann Professor Emeritus of Botany, Washington University in St. Louis, and President Emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Reviews

The differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes are much more deep and fundamental than, for example, those between higher animals and higher plants. Numerous facts, especially those from cytology of simplest eukaryotic organisms, support the views of Kozo-Polyansky—Margulis. The eukaryotic cell, compared to a prokaryotic cell, is already rather some sort of "supercell." A specific "assembly" of a complex eukaryotic system from already largely "prefabricated parts" took place during the process of evolution.
*Armen Takhtajan, Komarov Botanical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences*

How could this book not have been a part of evolutionary biology since its publication in 1924? …What a difference it would have in the "evolutionary synthesis" if this book were easily in the hands of biologists in German or English translation!
*William Provine, Cornell University*

Aiming to acquaint readers with the history of symbiogenesis theory, this excellent book accomplishes more than a mere presentation of a translated work originally written in the 1920s. Margulis and Fet have brought forth a gem of evolutionary thinking, essentially lost because it was published in Russian, which shows how the development of modern symbiogenesis theory (particularly that of Margulis) was anticipated (and would have been greatly aided) by the late botanist Kozo-Polyansky's work. It is a commendable piece of scholarship to present a publication that, in many ways, "scoops" the authors' own contributions to the field, if only in retrospect. Fet and Margulis, however, not only revive the book, they bring it fully into the sweep of modern theory by clearly and succinctly translating the original terms into their modern equivalents and correcting for the reader the statements by Kozo-Polyansky that have not held up over the intervening 85-plus years. Their insertions into the text are clearly marked and succinct, and do not detract from the original. Indeed, the book is as much a summary of the way science self-corrects and refines itself as it is a presentation of Kozo-Polyansky's work.
*Choice*