The Ghost Map
bySteven Johnson
Genres: HistoryNonfiction
Subenres: Modern History and Current Affairs
From the bestselling author of Everything Bad is Good For You, Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map vividly recreates Victorian London to show how huge populations live together, how cities can kill - and how they can save us.Steven Johnson is one of today's most exciting writers about popular culture, urban living and new technology. In The Ghost Map he tells the story of the terrifying cholera epidemic that engulfed London in 1854, and the two unlikely heroes - anesthetist Doctor John Snow and affable clergyman Reverend Henry Whitehead - who defeated the disease through a combination of local knowledge, scientific research and map-making.In telling their extraordinary story, Steven Johnson also explores a whole world of ideas and connections, from urban terror to microbes, ecosystems to the Great Stink, cultural phenomena to street life.'A wonderful book' Mail on Sunday'A thumping page-turner' Daily Telegraph'Enthralling ... vivid and gripping' New Statesman'Exhilarating' Spectator'It is a rattling scientific mystery, but in the hands of Steven Johnson it becomes something much richer ... a vast, interconnected picture about urban and bacterial life ... it is difficult to do justice to the exuberance of Johnson's ideas' Scotland on SundaySteven Johnson is the author of the acclaimed books Everything Bad is Good for You, Mind Wide Open, Where Good Ideas Come From,Emergence and Interface Culture. His writing appeared in the Guardian, the NewYorker, Nation and Harper's, as well as the op-ed pages of The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He is a Distinguished Writer In Residence at NYU's School Of Journalism, and a Contributing Editor to Wired.
Language
en
Published on
31/01/2008
Pages
320
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780141029368
Who is this book for? Readers interested in history, public health, and urban studies.
Topics EpidemiologyUrbanizationPublic healthScientific inquiryContagion theoryCity planningMultidisciplinary thinkingVictorian londonDisease transmissionHistorical medical breakthroughsSurvivalHuman NatureSocial Class
MoodSuspenseful, Reflective
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