It has likely been a year or so since I first heard of Dmitri Belyaev’s and Lyudmila Trut’s project to determine if foxes could be domesticated. Begun in 1959, their research has since brought to light a host of discoveries about the process and effects of domestication, and as well has yielded fifty-six generations of domesticated Silver Fox.

Although Belyaev died in 1985, Trut has continued with the research, and with the publication by University of Chicago Press of How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution, co-authored with Lee Dugatkin, now tells the story of what she and Belyaev discovered through the decades of their fascinating research.