Lynas, MarkMark Lynas is the author of three major popular science environmental books: High Tide (2004), Six Degrees (2008) and The God Species (2011), as well as the Kindle Single ebook Nuclear 2.0 (2012). Six Degrees won the Royal Society prize - the world's number on popular science prize - and was made into a documentary film, voiced by Alec Baldwin and aired on the National Geographic channel. Lynas was advisor to the President of the Maldives on climate change from 2009 until the coup in 2012. He has contributed extensively to global media, writing for the Guardian, New York Times, Washington Post, Bangkok Post and numerous others. He is a visiting fellow at the Cornell Alliance for Science, Cornell University, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The inside story of the fight for and against genetic modification in food, from someone who's been on the front line of both sides of the argument

'Mark Lynas is a saint' Sunday Times

'Fluent, persuasive and surely right.' Evening Standard

Mark Lynas was one of the original GM field wreckers. Back in the 1990s - working undercover with his colleagues in the environmental movement - he would descend on trial sites of genetically modified crops at night and hack them to pieces. Two decades later, most people around the world - from New York to China - still think that 'GMO' foods are bad for their health or likely to damage the environment. But Mark has changed his mind. This book explains why.

In 2013, in a world-famous recantation speech, Mark apologised for having destroyed GM crops. He spent the subsequent years touring Africa and Asia, and working with plant scientists who are using this technology to help smallholder farmers in developing countries cope better with pests, diseases and droughts.

This book lifts the lid on the anti-GMO craze and shows how science was left by the wayside as a wave of public hysteria swept the world. Mark takes us back to the origins of the technology and introduces the scientific pioneers who invented it. He explains what led him to question his earlier assumptions about GM food, and talks to both sides of this fractious debate to see what still motivates worldwide opposition today. In the process he asks - and answers - the killer question: how did we all get it so wrong on GMOs?

'An important contribution to an issue with enormous potential for benefiting humanity.' Stephen Pinker

'I warmly recommend it.' Philip Pullman