Declare Books In Favor Of The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
| Original Title: | The Ghost Map |
| ISBN: | 1594489254 (ISBN13: 9781594489259) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Steven Johnson
Hardcover | Pages: 299 pages Rating: 3.9 | 37197 Users | 3565 Reviews
Relation As Books The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
From Steven Johnson, the dynamic thinker routinely compared to James Gleick, Dava Sobel, and Malcolm Gladwell, The Ghost Map is a riveting page-turner about a real-life historical hero, Dr. John Snow. It's the summer of 1854, and London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure—garbage removal, clean water, sewers—necessary to support its rapidly expanding population, the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease no one knows how to cure. As the cholera outbreak takes hold, a physician and a local curate are spurred to action—and ultimately solve the most pressing medical riddle of their time. In a triumph of multidisciplinary thinking, Johnson illuminates the intertwined histories and inter-connectedness of the spread of disease, contagion theory, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry, offering both a riveting history and a powerful explanation of how it has shaped the world we live in.
Particularize Based On Books The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
| Title | : | The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World |
| Author | : | Steven Johnson |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 299 pages |
| Published | : | November 1st 2006 by Riverhead Books (first published October 19th 2006) |
| Categories | : | History. Nonfiction. Science. Health. Medicine. Medical. Historical. Audiobook |
Rating Based On Books The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
Ratings: 3.9 From 37197 Users | 3565 ReviewsCriticize Based On Books The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
I finally got my copy of this, but I also got an ebook copy & see that it has some maps. They're OK, but I didn't really miss them. He describes things well enough that an audio book is fine. In fact, his descriptions of life at the time are fantastic. The setup is a bit long, but it has to be. It's hard to imagine people living in those conditions (drinking out of open sewers!) with so little understanding of disease. It's incredible how far our common knowledge has come.Well, in some(view spoiler)[ Bettie's Books (hide spoiler)]
This starts out so well, with descriptions of the guys who used to scavenge in the sewers of London. It then goes into the nitty gritty of where all those Londoners used to put their shit (basically a lot of them just piled it up in their cellars). I love this kind of thing -- looking at the forgotten underside of a period or place in history.Unfortunately, Johnson runs out of steam pretty fast. He repeats the same points over and over again about how crazy people were for believing that smells
who knew i'd find a nonfiction account of the epidemiological history of cholera more interesting than most YA fantasy??this book was disgusting. it was also SO FUN. well, the first hundred or so pages were the funnest ever (five star level for real). then the next one hundred were like...eh. and the last fifty were "uhhh i think i'm just going to skip this i'm here for plagues and infectious disease not self-indulgent waxing romantic on the future of the city as a concept?????"but still.lot of
I enjoyed most of the book, but I hated the concluding chapter. I would have preferred it if he had stuck to his subject rather than stringing together a series of personal opinions. The discussion of the relative risks of a nuclear holocaust versus bio-terrorism via a genetically engineered virus seemed forced. Does it really matter? The author somehow managed to work in references to both the Iranian nuclear policy and intelligent design in a book about cholera in the nineteenth century. Was
We've come a long way ... and yet ... have we really?How could so many intelligent people be so grievously wrong for such an extended period of time? How could they ignore so much overwhelming evidence that contradicted their most basic theories? These questions, too, deserve their own discipline: the sociology of error.
I read The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World because I wanted to learn more about a story I thought I knew. The story I learned goes like this: during a terrible cholera outbreak in Victorian London, Dr. John Snow made a revolutionary map of the mortality, was like, Holy crap! The deaths all radiate out from this one pump! and removed the pump handle, thus halting the epidemic dead in its tracks. Turns out, there
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.