The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

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The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 · rating details · 11,232 ratings · 1,476 reviews

Trust Steven Johnson to put an intriguing and unconventional spin on a well-known story! The nimble-minded nonfiction writer who dazzled us in Emergence, Mind Wide Open, and Everything Bad Is Good for You now parses a storied incident from the annals of public health-- the Broad Street cholera epidemic of 1854, a deadly outbreak that literally decimated London's population...more

Hardcover, 299 pages

Published October 19th 2006 by Riverhead Hardcover

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Mar 27, 2010 Eric_W rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history-historiography

Cholera is a nasty little bug. Once ingested, it forms colonies on the intestinal wall, begins to reproduce with ferocious speed, and proceeds to trick the cells into excreting water rather than absorb it. It doesn't really matter of the host dies soon, because millions of new little cholera bacteria rush out of the host with the excreta waiting for the next person to ingest some excrement. That is the key. The only was to get cholera is by ingesting the excrement of another person so infected....more Cholera is a nasty little bug. Once ingested, it forms colonies on the intestinal wall, begins to reproduce with ferocious speed, and proceeds to trick the cells into excreting water rather than absorb it. It doesn't really matter of the host dies soon, because millions of new little cholera bacteria rush out of the host with the excreta waiting for the next person to ingest some excrement. That is the key. The only was to get cholera is by ingesting the excrement of another person so infected. Now you might say, whoa, that's more than I really wanted to know and I have no intention of so doing anyway. Well, you're right, all homo sapiens have a predisposition NOT to do just that, but given the rise of cities, the closeness with which we live, the relative ease of transportation, and the total misunderstanding of basic sanitation that existed until the 20th century, it was inevitable that the little buggers would escape their original habitat along the Ganges River.

Johnson discusses the interrelationship of the rise of cities, alcohol tolerance as a genetic adaptation to increased agriculturalization. Drinking water could be quite hazardous, but drinking beer and other alcoholic drinks had survival value from a natural selection standpoint because the fermentation process and alcohol killed off many harmful bacteria. Since alcohol is a poison and ill-tolerated by many, the speculation is that as agriculture and cities began to predominate, those who could tolerate alcohol better than others survived to reproduction age.

In another of those little actions that are intended to benefit, but which have unintended consequences, the change in use of sewers in London, inadvertently laid the groundwork (pun intended) for the cholera epidemic. Sewers had been designed to channel away rain water to and help prevent flooding in the city. In fact, it was prohibited to dump anything in the sewers and the Thames had been teeming with fish and quite clean. As the population increased, waste accumulated, and the aroma of piles of excrement in basements and elsewhere gave the miasmatists (those who believed disease was transmitted in the air) food for thought (the puns just keep rolling along.) So they had the brilliant idea of using the sewer system to wash the excrement out of the city and into the river which soon became foul. As it had also been the source of drinking water, the transmission of the cholera bacteria was efficient and inevitable.

Snow's rational approach to discovering the cause of the disease is remarkable in other ways. It had been common (a mythos that still is often heard today) to blame disease on lack of moral fiber. Since most of the victims were poor, and we all know that the poor are morally unfit, the victims themselves were somehow responsible for the illness. Snow rejected that possibility, rationally looking at evidence and building his case for the water-bourne nature of the disease. Johnson turns a nice metaphor in describing Snow's discovery: "...how great breakthroughs usually happen in practice. It is rarely the isolated genius having a eureka moment alone in the lab. Nor is it merely a question of building on precedent, of standing on the shoulders of giants, in Newton's famous phrase.Great breakthroughs are closer to what happens in a flood plain, a dozen separate tributaries converge and the rising waters lift the genius high enough that he or she can see around the conceptual constructions of the age."

How the source of cholera epidemics in London in 1854 was identified and explained is the subject of this engrossing work. A very good companion book to read with this one is Yellow Fever, Black Goddess: The Coevolution of People and Plagues which has an excellent section on modern cholera treatments.(less)

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Jan 28, 2008 Kay rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: medical, london, social-issues, nonfiction

By turns thought-provoking and irritating, The Ghost Map meanders from its central story -- how an unorthodox physician found the source of a cholera epidemic that swept through London in 1854 -- into a host of other issues. Expecting a more straightforward account of the unraveling of this medical mystery, I set this book aside twice in frustration, bored with the author's tendency to stretch out the narrative, and particularly his repeated examination of the hold the "miasma paradigm" had upon...more By turns thought-provoking and irritating, The Ghost Map meanders from its central story -- how an unorthodox physician found the source of a cholera epidemic that swept through London in 1854 -- into a host of other issues. Expecting a more straightforward account of the unraveling of this medical mystery, I set this book aside twice in frustration, bored with the author's tendency to stretch out the narrative, and particularly his repeated examination of the hold the "miasma paradigm" had upon medical minds in the mid nineteenth century. He can't seem to get over the fact that all manner of educated and otherwise reasonable people believed that disease was caused by noxious smells. His lengthy discussion of the bureaucratic obstacles faced by John Snow, the physician who linked cholera with contamination of drinking water with sewage, begins to wear thin about half-way through the book.

The Ghost Map certainly starts promisingly enough, with a description of Victorian London's hitherto unheralded "recyclers" - the "night-soil men," "mudlarks," rag-gatherers, bone-pickers and others who made a living scavenging in London's streets, rivers, and sewers. This is fascinating stuff -- who knew, for example, that such a person as a "pure finder" (dealer in dog shit, or "pure, which was used by tanners) existed? In this Dickensian world, an astonishing diverse array of second- (or third-) class citizens eked out a living on the margins.

From an examination of this nether world, Johnson then moves on to the slums of London, doing a crack-up job describing the cramped, horrid living conditions. He zeros in on one street and one family; a harried mother is caring for a sick infant, who eventually dies. The child suffers from virulent diarrhea and is wasting away. The mother washes the soiled diapers and tosses the dirty water in the cesspool just outside her door. The cesspool, in turn, oozes into a local well. The stage is set for the beginning of an epidemic.

Johnson is best when he describes this world, with its reeking slums. But he is inclined, frequently, to hare after philosophical questions, not the least of which is mankind's inability to see beyond the dominant scientific paradigms of the time. This bogs the narrative down. While Johnson has many interesting ideas and speculations, it's tiring to be taken on so many unresolved side journeys. It's not quite so interesting, for example, to read (at length) of John Snow's battles with pig-headed authorities, who are blind to the obvious link that Snow establishes between one particular source of contaminated water and the cholera epidemic. Nor was I particularly enthralled to read the minutia of Snow's statistical analysis he built for his case. Johnson also seems inordinately fond of the idea of a "map" as a grand organizing theme, one which he stretches out well past the 19th century in the final chapter.

Actually, the final chapter leaves Snow's London altogether and is something of an eye opener. Johnson discusses the role of cities in the modern world, as well as the gravest threats that mankind faces today. This chapter could well be a stand-alone essay. It made me think, ultimately, that this book would have made two excellent books -- one the tale of the cholera epidemic and the other of the social consequences of the rise of cities. As it is, putting them into one book, weaving between factual account and philosophical premise, was over-reaching a bit.
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Sep 07, 2008 Kirsti rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: history/psychology buffs

Shelves: history, nonfiction

WARNING: Do not read this review if you are squeamish. Or eating.

This book is about cholera, and as a result, the author uses an impressive number of words for shit--including excrement, ordure, human waste, and the Victorian euphemism night soil. And shit, of course.

Johnson explains that a key question in the development of civilization has always been "What are we going to do with all this shit?" This book dramatically improved my vocabulary regarding topics related to 1850s London. For insta...more

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Dec 15, 2011 Kerrie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: from-library, non-fiction, audiobook

This started out as an engrossing account of the filth and unhygienic conditions of Victorian London, where people literally piled shit in their basements, later to be removed by "nightsoil men" and a cemetery meant for 3000 bodies ended up containing 80,000 and gravediggers would jump up and down on the bodies in order to make room for more. It sounds insane today that anyone could live in those conditions and what's more...WTF did Victorian London SMELL like?

However, after about half the book...more

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Apr 17, 2008 Croaker rated it 4 of 5 stars

On August 28, 1854, working-class Londoner Sarah Lewis emptied a bucket of waste water into the cesspool of her squalid apartment building and triggered the deadliest outbreak of cholera in the city's history. A Victorian city with more than 2 million people packed into a ten-mile circumference. This is the story of two men: Dr. John Snow who pioneered the use of ether as an anesthetic in the United Kingdom, and on a personal note, mentions the first medical use of ether by Dr. William Morton; a...more On August 28, 1854, working-class Londoner Sarah Lewis emptied a bucket of waste water into the cesspool of her squalid apartment building and triggered the deadliest outbreak of cholera in the city's history. A Victorian city with more than 2 million people packed into a ten-mile circumference. This is the story of two men: Dr. John Snow who pioneered the use of ether as an anesthetic in the United Kingdom, and on a personal note, mentions the first medical use of ether by Dr. William Morton; and the Reverend Henry Whitehead, an Oxford-educated young man whose Anglican calling did nothing to abate his fondness for London taverns.

The book begins with a description of London as a city of scavengers: bone-pickers, rag-gatherers, pure-finders, dredgermen, mud-larks, sewer-hunters, dustmen, night-soil men, bunters, toshers and shoremen. Against this backdrop of vile and ghastly smells, and in the face of a horrifying epidemic, Snow posited the then radical theory that cholera was spread through contaminated water rather than through miasma, or smells in the air. Against considerable resistance from the medical and bureaucratic establishment, Snow persisted and, with hard work and groundbreaking research, helped to bring about a fundamental change in our understanding of disease and its spread. Johnson weaves in overlapping ideas about the growth of civilization, the organization of cities, and evolution to thrilling effect.
This is a multifaceted book incorporating a detective story, an introduction to statistics (math), and a personal history. The Ghost Map is 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. Unlike Jared Diamond however, Steve Johnson does not load the facts to reach the objective that Diamond would have us believe. From Snow's discovery of patient zero to Johnson's compelling argument for and celebration of cities, this makes for an illuminating and satisfying read. It is not a book for the squeamish however; a vivid description of death from cholera is graphically and terrifyingly detailed.
As interesting as the main body of the book is, Johnson ends with an Epilogue, which I believe was probably written well after he finished the telling of Dr. Snow’s story. If, for no other reason, read that chapter, but don’t expect to sleep well again. And when you read a newspaper article about a poultry worker dying in Thailand, think about what would happen if H5N1 were to undergo a single transgenic shift. Now, try to go back to sleep.
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Nov 11, 2007 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2007

This was an excellent account of the (successful) efforts of two men, John Snow and Henry Whitehead, to understand the means by which cholera is transmitted, following an 1854 outbreak in London's Soho district. The "ghost map" constructed by Snow, and the identification of the index case by Whitehead, were eventually successful in displacing the prevailing "miasma theory" by establishing linkage beyond reasonable doubt to contamination at a single water pump (the Broad Street pump).

Johnson does...more

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Aug 01, 2008 Jamie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think I can pretty say that this book by Steven Johnson isn't going to be for everybody. It tells the story of how several men tried to cope with and understand a massive outbreak of cholera in London during 1854. Yeah, riveting, right?

Actually, it was. In addition to talking about the disease itself (which basically causes death by diarrhea), the book follows the quest of a London doctor named John Snow as he propels the nascent science of epidemiology into its own. Snow went door to door in...more I think I can pretty say that this book by Steven Johnson isn't going to be for everybody. It tells the story of how several men tried to cope with and understand a massive outbreak of cholera in London during 1854. Yeah, riveting, right?

Actually, it was. In addition to talking about the disease itself (which basically causes death by diarrhea), the book follows the quest of a London doctor named John Snow as he propels the nascent science of epidemiology into its own. Snow went door to door in what was largely considered a doomed neighborhood, gathering information about who died, what their habits were, and most importantly how they got their water. He was working on a theory (one that turned out to be quite solidly supported) that cholera was transmitted via drinking water, and one public water pump in particular: the now infamous Broad Street pump that was befouled because a cholera victim's septic tank was leaking into its water supply.

This was a time before the germ theory of disease was widely known or accepted, so Snow was more of an underdog and outsider than you might think. The prevailing wisdom of the time was the "miasma theory," which held that "all smell is disease," and that cholera and other maladies were literally carried on the wind in the form of smells and bad air. It was amazing how hard Snow and the other main protagonist of the tale, Reverend Henry Whitehead, had to fight against this theory, which was largely taken as fact despite its frequent lack of evidence. But the team's tenacity and creativity won the day, resulting in the closure of the Broad Street pump, the avoidance of another cholera outbreak, and the iconic map of cholera deaths from which the book takes its name.

In addition to this central story, Johnson talks about related subjects, such as the London underclasses, the sociology and civic engineering of large cities, and the new London sewer systems. (The latter were particularly interesting, since they were built as a means of cleaning up the filth of the city, but they basically just ended up flushing it all into the Thames river and making waterborne diseases like cholera worse.) About the only complaint I have about the book is that it goes off the edge towards the end in what is basically a thinly veiled plug for Johnson's Outside In project. But in general, the whole narrative proved to be both fascinating and educational. Plus I guess I just love this history of science when it's presented in a context and with interesting characters.(less)

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Jan 23, 2009 Brack rated it 5 of 5 stars

A map of the carnage. A layout of the bodies, defining the organism via the footprints. Tracking a microscopic bacteria with only the tool of the mind. No bigfoot in this region, but ignorance, rumor, inuendo and prejudice abound. That is the surge you are up against. It is all speculation with the support of keen and disciplined observation. Take that Mr Bell and your theorum. Who can tell you that your observations are not subtly leading you by the nose. Truth has it’s own particular agenda. I...more

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Apr 27, 2011 Christine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence, Pete fell off and who was left? Repeat...Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence...

I was really excited to read this book and it started out just as I imagined - through the dark streets and homes of Londoners falling victim to an invisible and deadly illness. He introduced some interesting descriptive accounts of mid-19th century London, with their "bottle collectors" of the time, but who actually collected and sold animal/human waste, pieces of fabric...more Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence, Pete fell off and who was left? Repeat...Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence...

I was really excited to read this book and it started out just as I imagined - through the dark streets and homes of Londoners falling victim to an invisible and deadly illness. He introduced some interesting descriptive accounts of mid-19th century London, with their "bottle collectors" of the time, but who actually collected and sold animal/human waste, pieces of fabric from corpses and other grisly items, this portion was incredibly interesting and kept my attention. It left me wanting more, literally...because that voice was quickly squashed by another one of Steven Johnsons voices.

So, somewhere, I think it was around the time the narrative moved towards the accounts of the resistance to new scientific medicine theories, (germ theory) I started to feel like I was reading the same sentences over and over and over again, (which I do sometimes) but it was actually new sentences with the same words slightly re-arranged. There were pages of this. It seems at some point Steven Johnson couldn't stop himself from saying everything 10 times over again. Which actually was starting to feel offensive, because I understood pretty well the first time around, he gave great descriptions in making his points or claims - no need to repeat.

The work of John Snow, the physician central to the narrative, (and his counterpart Henry Whitehead) is remarkable, not to mention profoundly important, and I am glad to have this knowledge under my belt. I would say the first 1/3 of the book, so full of very interestining facts, descriptive accounts of biology and history with supportive arguments in and around the story that was told with an almost medical and historical prose - that was lovely and completely worth reading. But in the last 2/3's I felt, at most times, I was reading the writings of a really intelligent drunakard telling a very intriguing story, but, alas, had one too many pints and completely strangled the listeners interest by repeating himself....repeatedly. Much like one of those converstations that start out grabbing you attention and then you suddenly realize you need to start plotting your escape. My escape was skipping part of the epiloge, when he started talking about "the ghost map" created by Snow, being the foundation for Google maps and, well, that's where I decided to just make a run for it (it wasn't soon enough). I'd say 5 stars for the beginning 2 stars for the larger portion...which was actually probably the smaller portion if he would have just said everything once. (less)

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Feb 27, 2009 Sandi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 2009

This book starts out as a fascinating exploration of poop disposal, or the lack thereof, in mid-19th century London. Forget any romanticism you may have about the Victorian London. It was absolutely disgusting as Steven Johnson makes horrifyingly clear in "Ghost Map". People dumped poop out their windows, stored it in their cellars, flushed it into sewers that ran straight to the Thames. London was a stinky, poopy place.

The total free-for-all of sewage disposal led to several devastating outbrea...more

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Apr 19, 2010 Bethanne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

I finally got through a book! All it took was my honeymoon and a beach! Considering I was becoming borderline illiterate, I read this book quite fast. The story of the cholera epidemic in London was a page-turner, and I was disappointed that more of the book didn't focus on that alone. While the chapters on the rise of epidemiology and the idea of mega-cities were interesting, the cholera story alone kept me coming back to this book. Very good!

Addendum: I recommended this to my book club and got...more

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Sep 26, 2008 Sara* rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: history buffs, map lovers

Recommended to Sara* by: hunter college

Shelves: true

I really lucked out this semester in my Cities & Health course by getting a chance to read The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. The book, both a thrilling jaunt into the past and a terrifying look at the possibilities of the future, centers on 1854 London during the city's worst Cholera outbreak. The book follows a unorthodox Doctor, Dr. John Snow, and a man with his ear to the streets, Reverend Henry Whitehead, in the Golden Square neighborhood in Central London. The book chronicles the doctor'...more

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Jan 16, 2009 Bettie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, sciences, plague-disease, nonfiction

Broadwick Street showing the John Snow memorial and pub

Snow was a skeptic of the then-dominant miasma theory that stated held that diseases such as cholera or the Black Death were caused by pollution or a noxious form of "bad air". The germ theory was not widely accepted at this time, so he was unaware of the mechanism by which the disease was transmitted, but evidence led him to believe that it was not due to breathing foul air. He first publicized his theory in an essay On the Mode of Communication of Cholera in 1849. In 1855 a second edition was published, with a much more elaborate investigation of the effect of the water-supply in the Soho, London epidemic of 1854.

By talking to local residents (with the help of Reverend Henry Whitehead), he identified the source of the outbreak as the public water pump on Broad Street (now Broadwick Street). Although Snow's chemical and microscope examination of a sample of the Broad Street pump water was not able to conclusively prove its danger, his studies of the pattern of the disease were convincing enough to persuade the local council to disable the well pump by removing its handle. Although this action has been popularly reported as ending the outbreak, the epidemic may have already been in rapid decline, as explained by Snow himself:

There is no doubt that the mortality was much diminished, as I said before, by the flight of the population, which commenced soon after the outbreak; but the attacks had so far diminished before the use of the water was stopped, that it is impossible to decide whether the well still contained the cholera poison in an active state, or whether, from some cause, the water had become free from it.

Snow later used a spot map to illustrate how cases of cholera were centred around the pump. He also made a solid use of statistics to illustrate the connection between the quality of the source of water and cholera cases. He showed that companies taking water from sewage-polluted sections of the Thames delivered water to homes with an increased incidence of cholera. Snow's study was a major event in the history of public health, and can be regarded as the founding event of the science of epidemiology.(less)

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Jul 26, 2007 Max rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: information theory buffs

Shelves: science-maps-mathematics

If you can get past Johnson's rather nauseatingly detailed descriptions of choleric outbreak and his many accounts of the smells and cesspits of nineteenth century london, The Ghost Map ends up being a very interesting look at how local information and the painstaking research of a few visionaries changed dominant theories about disease and contagation.

Johnson's main focus is the shift in the mid to late nineteenth century from the prejudicial understanding of disease spread through filth and mi...more If you can get past Johnson's rather nauseatingly detailed descriptions of choleric outbreak and his many accounts of the smells and cesspits of nineteenth century london, The Ghost Map ends up being a very interesting look at how local information and the painstaking research of a few visionaries changed dominant theories about disease and contagation.

Johnson's main focus is the shift in the mid to late nineteenth century from the prejudicial understanding of disease spread through filth and miasma to a research oriented and scientifically grounded understanding of disease transmission. His main subject is the work of John Snow in the middle of the nineteenth century. Snow was a physician and a pioneering anethesiologist working in London during Cholera outbreaks that proved more devastating than the plague. Unsatisfied with the prevailing view that Cholera was transmitted through "miasma" (literally a cloud of filth) and was mainly a disease of the poor and the dregs of society, Snow used statistical research and local accounts to map the source of the disease to a contaminated water pump on London's Broad street. His findings, in spite of being well documented and soundly researched, went ignored for decades as outbreaks continued through the century. This was a period of time before v. Cholerae would have been readily visible with the available technologies. Snow relied on his understanding of the way Cholera attacked the body and his own on-the-ground research, tracing the footpaths of Cholera's victims to the broad street pump, to create a map of Cholera's spread, eventually convincing hard won authorities to close the pump down and take a look at the way Londonders handled their sewage and drinking water.

Johnson's book is an account about how the use and transmission of information - from the lives of Cholera's victims to the creation of Snow's map - can change deep set and prevailing understandings. It's also an account of incredible shortsightedness and prejudice on the part of many otherwise highly intelligent men.

Not exactly for the weak-stomached, but definitely enlightening.(less)

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Apr 14, 2009 Dan Schiff rated it 3 of 5 stars

This starts out so well, with descriptions of the guys who used to scavenge in the sewers of London. It then goes into the nitty gritty of where all those Londoners used to put their shit (basically a lot of them just piled it up in their cellars). I love this kind of thing -- looking at the forgotten underside of a period or place in history.

Unfortunately, Johnson runs out of steam pretty fast. He repeats the same points over and over again about how crazy people were for believing that smells...more

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Dec 01, 2008 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-non-fiction, medical, 2008

eh, this was okay as far as medical infectious disease books go. it got a little dry and repetitive towards the end, but it was interesting and informative for nearly the entire book.

i liked the way the author interspersed quotations from dickens and other authors of the time in addition to quotations from medical books/newspapers/other informational literature of the time.

cholera seems like a pretty nasty disease that i would never want to get, but it's such a simple one to avoid by not conta...more

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Jun 17, 2012 Halston rated it 5 of 5 stars

A very interesting novel, this work presents its subject matter in a unique way. I thoroughly enjoyed the style with which Steven Johnson tells a story while also demonstrating the scientific and demographic considerations. He incorporates politics, microbiology, and cartography into a good novel, and though he switches points of view and tenses often amid different chapters, he maintains the readers' interests while educating. A solid read.

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Jan 14, 2009 Svitlana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

This was an AMAZING novel!!!!! If you like science, this book is just right for you! It all started with one microorganism...It was capable to kill thousands of people. Learn about London’s most dreadful epidemic. It made me feel so nervous and suspicious, because of that mysterious origin of the bacteria… This novel truly uncovered for me the importance of interdependece and the life order the earth depends on. This novel uncovered for me that competition in scientific world can help and motiva...more

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Jun 02, 2010 Sharon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Difficult subject made easy for the layman to understand. I never realized what a disgusting pit London was during the 19th century. Filth and disease everywhere! But how we humans adapt; creating many jobs that filled the need to rid the city of its wastes. Just amazing. Equally amazing is how the two protagonists set out to understand and stop the spread of cholera that frequently decimated the city.

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Feb 05, 2009 TJ rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, own

another good book that tells the story of epidemics and how they affect us and are figured out. Strong book, though the ending and the author's thoughts on current politics and the possiblities of terrorism and bioterrism left a little to be desired.
But overall a good read. And informative as well

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Apr 16, 2009 Miranda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Can't put this one down. Nothing like a little bit of plague and pestilence to make one's day.

A very nicely written, thought-provoking book. Got me thinking as much about the manner in which we do science as about what the science tells us, or can tell us. A lot of thinking rolled into a tidy package, wrapped up in a rollicking good tale of a cholera epidemic. Satisfying as a read, on so many levels. I find myself revisiting often the thoughts I had while going through this lovely little book. A...more

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Oct 17, 2012 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, nonfiction

This is one of the best nonfiction books I've read in awhile. It's about a cholera epidemic in London in 1854, and the author does a great job of explaining the various factors that helped cause the outbreak, including a population explosion and the lack of a proper sewage system. The book follows Dr. John Snow, who was the first person to identify that cholera was spread by contaminated drinking water.

I would recommend this book to history buffs, fans of epidemiology and also Anglophiles, beca...more

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Jul 24, 2008 Lynne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, history

I enjoyed most of the book, but I hated the concluding chapter. I would have preferred it if he had stuck to his subject rather than stringing together a series of personal opinions. The discussion of the relative risks of a nuclear holocaust versus bio-terrorism via a genetically engineered virus seemed forced. Does it really matter? The author somehow managed to work in references to both the Iranian nuclear policy and intelligent design in a book about cholera in the nineteenth century. Was t...more

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Feb 01, 2009 Daniel Hadley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Johnson describes how cities (in this case, Victorian London) both create situations where diseases (in this case, cholera) can spread rapidly, and contain the solutions to our modern problems (in this case, by providing the density and creative energy necessary to produce John Snow's map, which paved the way for modern epidemiology). Contrary to the then-popular miasmatic theory of disease, cholera was spreading rapidly in London's contaminated water. When Snow teamed with another Soho resident...more

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Dec 10, 2008 Donna rated it 3 of 5 stars

A 'thrilling review' doesn't quite capture it - I thought it was a little dull sometimes. The story is fascinating - providing more detail to the story of how Dr John Snow (a man from humble origins who rose to become not a surgeon but a physician. He even studied and perfected anesthesia and gave it to the queen during childbirth)along with a local pastor named Whitehead set about proving the way that cholera is spread. During the Victorian era most people were miasmaists. (Miasma is considered...more

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Dec 10, 2008 Perryville Library added it

Shelves: angela, nonfiction

“This is a story with four protagonists: a deadly bacterium, a vast city, and two gifted but very different men. One dark week a hundred fifty years ago, in the midst of great terror and human suffering, their lives collided on London’s Broad Street, on the western edge of Soho.”

The cholera bacterium had claimed many victims prior to 1854, but that year there was a particularly deadly outbreak in September. Contaminated air, “miasma”, was the well-established theory about the cause of the diseas...more

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May 18, 2013 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, pop-science

I vaguely knew the story of how removing a pump handle stopped a cholera epidemic, but this book goes into a fascinating level of detail.

Cholera was one of the big terrifying diseases of the 1800s—as the author notes, you just had to live with the knowledge that, no matter how healthy you were, at any point you (and your entire family) could be wiped out in a day and a half and no one knew how to stop or prevent it. Cholera moves shockingly fast by basically causing the body to expell all of its...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Ghost Map is an ingenious, captivating, and completely puzzling book. Steven Johnson, the book’s author, manages to interweave the brilliant investigations of John Snow and Henry Whitehead into the causes of cholera with fascinating background images of Victorian London and early biological science. Unfortunately, Johnson fails to generate a consistent thesis and so his efforts become untangled in the end.

If there is one area in which The Ghost Map excels, it is in its recitation of Dr. John...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Chris528735 rated it 4 of 5 stars

My 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...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Saloni rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'll be frank - I wasn't expecting this to be a book I'd recommend to non-biology-majoring friends and family. I thought it would be too dry for them. After all, I had gotten it for free at a college public health conference. Turns out I was wrong! The book is framed almost like a detective story and is thrilling in the way that the movie, "Contagion," is. And it has a well-developed thesis about urbanization and urban development that will shock and awe you. Johnson peppers this story with fasc...more

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About Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson is the author of the bestsellers Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, Everything Bad Is Good For You, and Mind Wide Open, as well as Emergence and Interface Culture. He is the founder of a variety of influential websites—most recently, outside.in—and writes for Time, Wired, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Marin County, Califor...more

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Books by Steven Johnson

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life

Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software

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“This is how great intellectual breakthroughs usually happen in practice. It is rarely the isolated genius having a eureka moment alone in the lab. Nor is it merely a question of building on precedent, of standing on the shoulders of giants, in Newton's famous phrase. Great breakthroughs are closer to what happens in a flood plain: a dozen separate tributaries converge, and the rising waters lift the genius high enough that he or she can see around the conceptual obstructions of the age.” — 9 people liked it

“How could so many intelligent people be so grievously wrong for such an extended period of time? How could they ignore so much overwhelming evidence that contradicted their most basic theories? These questions, too, deserve their own discipline: the sociology of error.” — 3 people liked it

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title link	preview: The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
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The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

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