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by: Steven Johnson  List Price: $15.00 Amazon.com's Price: $10.20 You Save: $4.80 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 941 EAN: 9781594482694 Edition: 1 Reprint ISBN: 1594482691 Label: Riverhead Trade Manufacturer: Riverhead Trade Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: October 02, 2007 Publisher: Riverhead Trade Studio: Riverhead Trade Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: A National Bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book, and an Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year 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 of the spread of disease, 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. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Like fictionSteven Johnson gets draw a clasical Snow's Story like a fiction but anchored to the reality throught tree "dramatic lines": 1. The comming of a epidemiology like a new science. 2. The borning of geographic inference. How we can infer what happen in the micro world trough the macro world. 3. A case of honestity betwen ancient believes performer and a science man. Those tree treadsare weaved by the story with presence of tautness moments and characters ... Read More Rating:  - Good book, but Kindle edition falls shortThis was the first book I purchased for my Kindle, based on a friend's recommendation (who had read the print version). I found it a very enjoyable read, and it will be especially appealing to those interested in epidemiology, statistical graphics, and medical history. However, if you care at all about annotations and such, I recommend you get it in print, not as a Kindle e-book. The book has very extensive notes at the end. I have to believe that these notes are numbered, and that there ... Read More Rating: - Mapping a mysteryInteresting retelling of the London Cholera outbreak in 1854, and how a physician and a pastor working on the edges of their disciplines solved the mystery and drew the "ghost map" of deaths which pointed to the source of the disease. Bogs down when Johnson generalizes to the benefit of modern cities to the economy, the environment, and world health. Yeah, maybe, but I'm not sure Johnson proves the point or rather I'm fairly sure that Johnson over-reaches the evidence to try to prove his point. ... Read More Rating: - Good readMy first introduction to John Snow and his work surrounding the cholera epidemic of the 1850's was during a microbiology class I took 5-6 years ago. John Snow is largely credited with the discovery of the causative nature of cholera and the resulting changes in civic sanitation and waste management. My appetite was only whetted then and wasn't fully satiated until after I read this intriguing account by Steven Johnson. More than just a telling of the events and resolution of the cholera epidemic of 1850's London, ... Read More Rating: - Where has your drinking water been?The difficulty in reading about centuries past is adopting the mindset of those who lived then; how can we, with our 21st century knowledge, grasp a world in which people washed their babies' diapers next to the local drinking supply and thought nothing of it? Yet, Johnson weaves such a detailed picture of London life at the time that the commonplace miscomprehensions held by both the academics and uneducated are understandable. Johnson's greatest narrative gift is capturing the extent of the devastation and its ... Read More 
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