The Ghost Map
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Ghost Map: A Street, an Epidemic and the Hidden Power of Urban Networks. for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Daily Telegraph
'A thumping page-turner'
Mail on Sunday
'A wonderful book'
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Steven Johnson's narrative initially grabs you by the throat and the book is literally a page turner if there ever was one. A parade of the most appaling professions with which people eked out a meagre existence, the hairraising living conditions of the majority of Londoners and the very vivid and utterly dramatic description of the course of the disease (most people who contracted cholera died within 48 hours and knew it; they often saw their families dying before their very eyes without being able to do anything) makes you realise how lucky we are to be living in the present and not in Victorian times. But after 228 pages Johnson loses his thread somewhere and the remaining thirty-odd pages are quite frankly awfully boring and have little or no bearing on what went on before. An editor would have been welcome indeed. But since the lion's share of the book deserves eight stars and only the last tiny bit two, my verdict in the end would be five.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read this after it was recommended on Radio 4's book club, and thought that it was generally pretty good. It was obviously well researched and the writing was engaging. My only complaint was that the story did not have enough substance to justify a book that is couple of hundred pages long. Initially, I really enjoyed the book, with its evocative descriptions of Victorian London - night soil men and all. However, the author soon began repeating himself and labouring certain points (I lose count of how many times he stated that Dr Snow and Rev Whitehead were mutually dependent on each other when it came to solving the problem of how cholera is transmitted - but it felt like too many!) My overall impression was that this story would have made a good article, but that it had insufficient depth to require a book of this length.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The author told this tale of the first epidemiological study, and how it put an end to cholera in London, with such mastery of language and pacing. But then the last chapter was cobbled together by musing on the future, ruminating about potential threats to health, and making tenuous connections to John Snow's work. Still well worth reading, but the ending will ensure that it becomes dated rapidly.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
The Ghost Map
The Ghost Map is an excellent, well-researched study of disease and dirt - subjects we are often reluctant to confront. Read more
Published 13 months ago by jmhendedog
The Paradox of H2O: Both the problem and the solution
The title refers to a document that John Snow, a physician, devised after the outbreak of bubonic plague in London in the 1840s. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Robert Morris
Highly palatable science!
The history of a nineteenth century cholera outbreak may not sound like riveting reading, but it is utterly fascinating. Read more
Published on 27 July 2009 by M. S. Steer
Brilliant
A really well detailed account, and interesting history of the battle with Cholera by Dr. Snow and his colleagues in Victorian London. Read more
Published on 18 May 2008 by D. Rook
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
