The Price of Altruism

July 26, 2010
With his new book, Harman (The Man Who Invented the Chromosome) examines Price, a scientist and author whose promising life ended in self- destruction. Harman didn’t set out to write a straightforward biography, but rather a history of Price’s lifelong quest to understand evolution and the origins of altruism; along those lines the author includes the life and work of “Orwellian” psychologist B.F. Skinner, J.B.S. Haldane, and “the most distinguished Darwinian since Darwin,” Bill Hamilton, who would become a close colleague of Price’s. But it’s Price’s tale that grounds Harman’s book. Part One focuses on the man’s early life in Minneapolis, his marriage and divorce to Julia Madigan, with whom he had two daughters, and his later life in New York City, where he held countless jobs as he tried to get published. In November 1967 Price moved to London, determined to “crack the problem of altruism,” and Part Two picks up there, with his conversion to Christianity, after which he gave away his possessions and dedicated himself to helping London’s homeless, until he eventually joined their ranks. In 1975, just after Christmas, he took his own life. Harman has given voice to the professional contributions and personal struggles of a man whose body lies today in an unmarked grave in North London.