Belyaev died in 1985, but the experiment is still ongoing, with 56 generations of foxes bred to date — a far cry from the snarling creatures that used to snap at the hands of their caretakers when the research began. The new foxes run toward people, jump on the bed and nuzzle one another as well as their human caretakers. Such a behavioral transformation was to some degree expected, since they were bred from the tamest members of their groups. Perhaps more intriguing, they also look more doglike, with floppy ears, wagging tails and piebald fur. Recent work uses modern genomics to understand the genetics behind the foxes’ changes in personality and appearance. The results are not nearly as widely known among scientists, not to mention the public, as they deserve to be.

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The story, fraught with the drama of difficult labor in the Siberian winter, would have been extraordinary enough as a work of science. But it began as the Soviet Union was shaking off the disastrous influence of Trofim Lysenko, the director of biology under Stalin. In keeping with the idea that the government could engineer a perfect society simply by manipulating the environment — whether of crops or people — Lysenko rejected the burgeoning field of genetics and promoted agricultural improvement through the inheritance of acquired characteristics, à la Lamarck. (According to this view, a bodybuilder would pass on bulky muscles to his children.) His efforts resulted in the failure of Soviet agriculture, but for decades he was highly influential, and Belyaev and Trut had to pursue their research in the face of lingering skepticism at best and the threat of imprisonment at worst.

The book, however, is not only about dogs, or foxes, or even science under siege from political interests. It is an exploration of how genes, evolution and then environment shape behavior, and in a way that puts paid simplistic arguments about nature versus nurture. It may serve — particularly now — as a parable of the lessons that can emerge from unfettered science, if we have the courage to let it unfold.