- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Allen Lane; 1st ed edition (7 Dec 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0713999748
- ISBN-13: 978-0713999747
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.6 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 354,526 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Scotsman
It is difficult to do justice to the exuberance of Johnson's ideas
... a challenging and exciting work.
... a challenging and exciting work.
Product Description
At 6am on 28 August 1854, the city of London struggled to sleep at the end of an oppressively hot summer. But at 40 Broad Street, Soho, Sarah Lewis was awake tending to her feverish baby girl. As she threw a used bucket of water into the cesspool at the front of her lodgings, it marked the start of a cholera epidemic that would consume 50,000 lives in England and Wales - and become a battle between man and microbe unlike any other. Steven Johnson takes us day by day through what happened and re-creates a London full of dust heaps, furnaces and slaughterhouses; where a ghost class of bone-pickers, rag gatherers, dredger men and mud-larks scavenged off waste; where families were crammed into tiny rooms and cartloads of bodies wheeled down the streets. And at the heart of the story is Doctor John Snow: vegetarian, teetotaller, anaesthesiologist and Soho resident, whose use of maps to prove that cholera was spread by water - and not borne on the air as most believed - would bring him into conflict with the entire medical establishment, but ultimately defeat his era's greatest killer. Steven Johnson interweaves this extraordinary story with a wealth of ideas about how cities work, ecosystems thrive and cultures connect. He argues that, with half the planet's population set to be urban, today's megacities could soon be wrestling with the same problems as John Snow and that, just as in 1854, science could be our salvation.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Interesting book although somewhat lacking in depth. It does give the reader a sense of London's public health history and changes that were initiated as a result of the 19th century cholera epidemic. The descriptions of life in London during that time, the population density of the city and the poor sanitation (or lack of sanitation) are thought provoking and I found those to be the most interesting part of the book. Many people of the time (as well as scientists) thought that diseases were spread by smell and went through pains to try and cover up the bad odors. There is a detective nature to the book as the means by which the spread of cholera are investigated, and a specific outbreak is linked to a water pump. This is an easily readable book and is recommended for those who want to know something about cholera and its impact on public health.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book deals with a cholera outbreak in London in 1854 and environmental and hygeine conditions that existed at that tima.
In 1854 itwas commonly believed that cholera was spread by foetid air but it was Dr.John Snow who conclusively prooved that it was waterborne.This result was achieved by careful investigation,mapping,case histories,surveillance,collection of data and statistics.All these factors are woven into a thrilling detective story by the author.
Equally fascinating is the social comentary of the times with its filth,sewage, horrendous housing and poverty.
The principles of disease investigation used by Snow are the basis of epidemiology which is practised today.
The maps ,diagrams and illustrations are good but I do not like the title of the book "The Ghost Map"which hs no relevance to the investigation of the outbreak.
The notes and bibliography are good but it is surprising Snows book "The Broad Street Pump"is not listed.
110 years later in 1964 a virtually identical incident occured in Hong Kong known as "The Temple Street Well".
Abook to be recommended.
In 1854 itwas commonly believed that cholera was spread by foetid air but it was Dr.John Snow who conclusively prooved that it was waterborne.This result was achieved by careful investigation,mapping,case histories,surveillance,collection of data and statistics.All these factors are woven into a thrilling detective story by the author.
Equally fascinating is the social comentary of the times with its filth,sewage, horrendous housing and poverty.
The principles of disease investigation used by Snow are the basis of epidemiology which is practised today.
The maps ,diagrams and illustrations are good but I do not like the title of the book "The Ghost Map"which hs no relevance to the investigation of the outbreak.
The notes and bibliography are good but it is surprising Snows book "The Broad Street Pump"is not listed.
110 years later in 1964 a virtually identical incident occured in Hong Kong known as "The Temple Street Well".
Abook to be recommended.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book combines a detective story with a slice of Victorian social history. Outbreaks of cholora were not infrequent in 19th. cent. London but Steven Johnson is concerned with one particular case in Soho in 1854, centered round the pump in Broad Street. In an England bustling with the great inventions of the Industrial Revolutions the ever present danger of vast quantities of crap - in the streets and the water - appears to have been overlooked. The awful smells convinced everyone that epidemics were spread by air but two people contested this assumption. I found this book strangely un-putdownable, possibly because I lost four members of my own family to cholora in the same year, in Whitechapel, London, but also because you want to know what happens next. You also learn a fat slice of our recent history.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Excellent tale marred by an outbreak of verbal diarrhoea in the...
The Ghost Map tells the story of the 1854 outbreak of cholera in Broad Street, London. More than six hundred people died, but the episode marked a turning point in the... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Metropolitan Critic
The author should have stopped at page 200...
It seems like I am not alone in these sentiments, at least among the critical reviewers of this book. Read more
Published 14 months ago by John P. Jones III
A great read, but marred by the epilogue
The story of London's 1854 cholera outbreak turns up in short form in many places, so it was a delight to read a fuller version of the story. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Rosey Lea
Epidemiology made readable
The story of how Dr John Snow and the Rev Henry Whitehead pieced together that cholera was waterborne against the very strong conventional wisdom that it was airborne. Read more
Published on 3 Jan 2010 by M. Hillmann
An argument for overpriced, trés chic bottled water
"Since the dawn of civilization, human culture has demonstrated a remarkable knack for diversity, but eating other humans' waste is as close to a universal taboo as any in the... Read more
Published on 10 Aug 2009 by Joseph Haschka
zipped through this book breathless
I'm a new transplant to London and this book is fantastic in casting my new home in a vintage Victorian light--evocative in its language and adept at portraying the sights, smells,... Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2009 by soupinadumpling
The Ghost Map
I loved this book. It is very informative and at the same very readable. As a reader who usually reads fiction, I found this a 'step up' and felt that I learnt a lot about... Read more
Published on 28 May 2007 by Mrs. C. H. Steed
History with a twist
Johnson's book reads as a detective story, with the two heroes seeking to find how Cholera is spread and how to stop an epidemic. Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2007 by David Stroud
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