World Famous Comics: The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
By: Steven Johnson Publisher: Riverhead Trade Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Format: Bargain Price Label: Riverhead Trade Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 320 Publication Date: October 02, 2007
Product Description: A thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London-and a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science, and the modern world.
From the dynamic thinker routinely compared to Malcolm Gladwell, E. O. Wilson, and James Gleick, The Ghost Map is a riveting page-turner with a real-life historical hero that brilliantly illuminates the intertwined histories of the spread of viruses, rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry. These are topics that have long obsessed Steven Johnson, and The Ghost Map is a true triumph of the kind of multidisciplinary thinking for which he's become famous-a book that, like the work of Jared Diamond, presents both vivid history and a powerful and provocative explanation of what it means for the world we live in.
The Ghost Map takes place in the summer of 1854. A devastating cholera outbreak seizes London just as it is emerging as a modern city: more than 2 million people packed into a ten-mile circumference, a hub of travel and commerce, teeming with people from all over the world, continually pushing the limits of infrastructure that's outdated as soon as it's updated. Dr. John Snow-whose ideas about contagion had been dismissed by the scientific community-is spurred to intense action when the people in his neighborhood begin dying. With enthralling suspense, Johnson chronicles Snow's day-by-day efforts, as he risks his own life to prove how the epidemic is being spread.
When he creates the map that traces the pattern of outbreak back to its source, Dr. Snow didn't just solve the most pressing medical riddle of his time. He ultimately established a precedent for the way modern city-dwellers, city planners, physicians, and public officials think about the spread of disease and the development of the modern urban environment.
The Ghost Map is an endlessly compelling and utterly gripping account of that London summer of 1854, from the microbial level to the macrourban-theory level-including, most important, the human level.
Can We See the Actual Map? Steven Johnson's book, The Ghost Map, tells the story of how a doctor, John Snow, and a local minister, Henry Whitehead, worked together to combat an outbreak of cholera in their London neighborhood. They did so by conducting on the spot investigation which allowed them to demonstrate that the cholera was being transmitted through the water supply at the Broad Street pump. This demonstration was illustrated through the famous "ghost map" that showed the cluster of illness around the pump which, in turn, famously, led to the removal of the pump handle to combat the outbreak.
Mr. Johnson does a fair job of telling this story. The strength of his telling lies in how he reminds us how far our understanding of disease has come in the past couple centuries. In an era where disease is so much better controlled through hygiene and treatment, it is so easy to forget how diseases like cholera, plague and smallpox would periodically devastate populations--diseases that are now essentially unknown in the developed world.
Yet, in the summer of 1854, the best medical authorities still believed that cholera was an effect of "miasma," the inhalation of foul odors carried through the air. Scientific rigor was becoming part of medicine by this time, however, and Dr. Snow had hypothesized some years before this outbreak that cholera was carried in the water supply. What he was lacking was proof, which the outbreak of 1854 gave him the opportunity to try to supply. And supply his proof he did, despite the fact that it would be some time before his conclusions were accepted even in the face of very convincing evidence, like the "ghost map."
Mr. Johnson relates these pieces of the story very well. What he does less well is bring these people vividly to life. Only Dr. Snow really seems to be fully three-dimensional in Johnson's story. Whitehead, Farr, Chadwick and others flit around the edges of this story like so many ghosts and never seem to be full-bodied people. It was also disappointing that, despite the title, we are not provided with a picture or color reproduction of this revolutionary map. Being able to examine the actual map would have been a nice addition to the text.
Still, there is much of value here. Despite some bells and whistles that would have added energy to the prose, the story of disease and science takes center stage in this book. It is a nice reminder of the good science can do and the struggle that scientists often have to undergo to have new ideas break through.
Where were the editors? I just finished Steven Johnson's "Ghost Map". Not to be rude, but how does this stuff get published? For Pete's sake, the name of the book is ghost map, and there is not even a copy of the ghost map in the book.
The book itself lacks any kind of literary punch. Ostensibly about John Snow and cholera, in which there is probably an interesting story if told with focus, Johnson rambles pointlessly around campy urban planning doggerel.
I guess Johnson's reputation is so unassailable that editors don't bother to read what they publish. And that is what the book lacks, an editor.
The worst part is Johnson's attack on the foolish orthodoxy of the miasmaists, while he dutifully regurgitates the junior-high platitudes to Darwinist orthodoxy, when doing so adds absolutely nothing to the story, except to confirm his own Party loyalty.
One of the most interesting books that I have read in a long time In the summer of 1854, the Soho neighborhood of London was struck by a devastating outbreak of Cholera. Public officials and medical experts, who were stuck in the conventional wisdom that disease was caused by harmful "miasmas," looked in all the wrong places for the cause of the epidemic. But, there was one man who challenged the consensus of scientists and turned the entire understanding of diseases on its head - Dr. John Snow. This is the story of one man's bravery in using his brain, and letting the facts speak for themselves, even when those in power didn't want to hear it.
I must say that this is one of the most interesting books that I have read in a long time. The author does an excellent job of bringing that long-ago era back to life for the reader. I think that he did an excellent job of telling the story of Dr. Snow and the epidemic in an interesting way, avoiding the temptation to write the narrative in a dull, academic manner.
Plus, I was so intrigued by how history repeats itself over and over again. Could it happen again where a "consensus of scientists" can be used to trump meaningful, unbiased inquiry? Oh yeah!
This is a great book, one that I think will interest anyone interested in diseases and history, or indeed anyone who likes a good story. I loved this book, and no not hesitate to give it my highest recommendations!
Clever story marred by trendy theorizing It's almost superfluous for me to review Ghost Map, a best-seller with its own webpage and Wikipedia article. So I will be brief. Steven Johnson is clever writer, a young man whose thought provoking story of the London cholera epidemic of 1854 contains a number of profitable ironies and digressions.
The weakness of the book--which no doubt many enthusiasts regard as a strength--is that Johnson is so consumed with communicating Big Ideas that the narrative peters out before the end of the volume, leaving behind a dusting of trendy theories that can make such works successful in the short run and quickly dated thereafter.
For example, Johnson considers one of the lessons of the ghost map story to be the demonstration that there is no moral component to disease. Yet today things "illegal, immoral and fattening" are more-than-ever suspect causes of premature death. Even Johnson's bête noir, the miasmic theory, has made something of a comeback with increased concern about air pollution. Ironically, Johnson's story, which the Chicago Tribune has called "the triumph of reason and evidence over superstition and theory," concludes with an attempt to enshrine its own superstitions and theories.
Medical / Health Related Sleuths of the Origin and Cause of a Cholera Epidemic in London in the 1800s. This book is an excellent and detailed look into the work of a few men who worked to try to solve the cause of a cholera outbreak in London.
It shows how the principal investigator used logic and reasoning and investigation skills to try to solve the mystery of what was causing the outbreak. It also goes into competing theories and theorists and the ultimate resolution of the cause of it.
The book is on balance an excellent one. I recommend it to anyone interested in medical and public health investigations, or in science, reasoning, and problem solving.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tony's Online Tips
Trevor
