Identity

What DNA Can Tell Us About Ourselves

Carles Lalueza-Fox

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English

MIT Press
25 November 2025

Biology, life sciences

How genetics can provide novel, fascinating, and objective data on human identity-when identity has never been more important.

How genetics can provide novel, fascinating, and objective data on human identity-when identity has never been more important.

Our identity, both personal and collective, is a fluid and complex narrative often rooted in the past. This past can now be explored with new technological developments; in the last few years, more than 12,000 ancient human genomes have been retrieved. At the same time, ancestry test companies are building conceptions on our identity based on genetic data from literally tens of millions of customers. Computational approaches are now able to generate pedigrees with literally millions of people across tens of generations.

In Identity, Carles Lalueza-Fox explores how the unprecedented amount of genetic information generated in the last ten years can provide meaningful and fascinating evidence about our identity, starting at the individual level and ending at the species level.

As genetics take center stage as a social transformative tool in the twenty-first century, this book helps explain the tremendous impact it will have on our concept of identity.

By: Carles Lalueza-Fox
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262553223
ISBN 10: 0262553228
Pages: 176
Publication Date: 25 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Carles Lalueza-Fox is a leading research expert on the retrieval and analysis of ancient genomes, including extinct hominins, past human populations and pathogens. He is Director of the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona and the author of Inequality (MIT Press).