Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci., Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 647–657, 2000 Pergamon Printed in Great Britain www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsc Essay Review Credibility@Feminist.Epistemology Anandi Hattiangadi* Donna J. Haraway, Modest Witness@Second Millennium.FemaleMan Meets OncoMouse (New York and London: Routledge, 1997), xiv + 361 pp. ISBN 0- 415-91244x, Hardback, £54.00. ISBN 0-415-91245-8, Paperback £14.99. In this book, Donna Haraway turns her keen eye towards technoscience in action, displaying a remarkable talent for disentangling the sticky webs that make up tech- noscience. There are so many narrative threads running through the book that it defies summary: it is about genes, databases, chips, computers, gender, seeds, cyborgs, race and fetuses; in it you will find suggestive observations, startling insights and potent metaphors relating to cognitive science, genetics, literary criti- cism, anthropology, epistemology, sociobiology, cultural studies, genetics and post- modernism. Haraway’s insight on matters of fact often displays the same kind of virtuosity that was evident in her Primate Visions (1989); her attention to detail is, as ever, nothing short of astounding. For this reason alone, Modest Witness is worth picking up off the shelf. However, unlike Primate Visions, Haraway’s aim in Modest Wit- ness is programmatic rather than, primarily, substantive. Anyone interested in an exhaustive treatment of any particular point will be disappointed: so many issues are addressed that none is pursued to a sufficient degree. To be fair, this is largely because Modest Witness is a collection of disparate articles, tied together by brief interstitial discussions. However, it would be a mis- take to see it as a mere heap. On the contrary, it is a vigorous attempt to articulate and exemplify what Haraway calls an ‘oppositional’ programme in science and technology studies. I would like to register my wholehearted endorsement of this project in its broad outlines. Haraway attempts to synthesize the best of feminist, * Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH, U.K. PII: S1369-8486(00)00005-4 647