The concepts in this book are linked to an interdisciplinary research
project involving many people sharing a method of analysis and perception
of cultural mutations. This common method has been crucial to
the engineering of this book.
I wish to thank Keith Ansell Pearson for his constant support and
encouragement. His scrupulous comments and attention to earlier and
final drafts have been essential for the completion of this work.
I am also very grateful to the Five College of Women’s Studies
Research Centre Award (Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts) for
giving me the opportunity to meet Lynn Margulis in 1997. Thanks to
her generosity, I was able to access research material in the laboratory
at Amherst College, and was involved in the various and exciting activities
in her research study group.