This book is a comprehensive look at just what bird (or avian) flu is all about, and what the world is, or is not, doing about it.
Influenzas are divided into three major categories. Types B & C are relatively mild, leading to the common cold, or, at worst, the winter flu. But Type A is the unpredict ...more
An interesting look into the world of avian influenzas and the other branches of the influenza families. While quite pertinent for the modern age, some of the examples are a little dated and written with a sharp flair for the dramatic... perhaps too much so, to the point where it feels like I'm read ...more
15 years before the COVID 19 pandemic, Mike Davis, taking his queue from the experts, warned of the inevitability of a global pandemic for which we are ill prepared. Due to the dramatic increase in third world urbanization and the appalling conditions of the livestock revolution, Davis focuses on th ...more
Es un libro escribo en 2005 y contiene una aguda visión global tanto de la ecología de los virus, así como todas las decisiones políticas y económicas donde los intereses e irresponsabilidad del sector público y privado que no solo han afectado en la actual pandemia, sino que vienen arrastrando desd ...more
In his critical appraisal of Old Gods, New Enigmas, Troy Vettese praised Davis as "last man to know everything" - and he was certainly right. Read this and see how prophetic he was. ...more
Re-read this 2006 book in the current coronavirus pandemic. Strange that another SARS-type illness ends up as the monster, given how likely Davis (and others) thought influenza would take that title. In other respects, the exact virus isn't so important when you read how different countries responde ...more
Davis does a great job hashing out the ongoing issues which make another flu pandemic quite likely in the future.
Ongoing negligence in the political sphere, profiteering by Big Pharma, placing profit over the needs of the people at large. The role of "megaslums" and the consolidation of agribusiness ...more
I started reading this on the plane to Davis the other day, and it's so hard to put down! It's written through lots of compelling stories, about the 1918 flu, avian flu, H1N1, H2N6, the hong kong flu, SARS and more. What's great about it is that it makes the clear links between structural inequities ...more
«Llega el monstruo. COVID-19, gripe aviar y las plagas del capitalismo» de Mike Davis es una lectura clave para entender a qué nos enfrentamos en estos tiempos de pandemia global, cómo hemos llegado hasta aquí y lo que está por llegar.
A muchos SARS-CoV-2 nos puede parecer una novedad inesperada, per ...more
Given the current global pandemic of Covid-19, this was a chilling read. This was written more than 10 years ago, and yet, it reads like it is from the morning news. I learned a lot and it was all very scary stuff. We are living a small part of the horror that the book describes. Thankfully, the let ...more
Ensayo bien documentado y argumentado, pero está mal organizado y es repetitivo. Acabé totalmente mareado con el baile de hache y enes, y el detallado despliegue de siglas y organizaciones no me aportó casi nada. Tampoco entendí la estructura de los capítulos. El mensaje, en cualquier caso, queda cl ...more
An excellent subject matter, but the book falls a little short. From its sensationalist cover to its thinly veiled political slant, I found this book to be mostly scientific but not entirely so. I learned a lot from the book, but felt unfulfilled at the end: the problems are identified, but the solu ...more
As someone who is incredibly interested in public health policy and practices in infectious diseases, I could not put this book down! I think it would be a dense read for those who do not have background, but I wish I could have everybody read this book. Incredibly interesting foreshadowing to the C ...more
It was interesting to read this book in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mike Davis gives a comprehensive recount of avian flu history, highlighting some of the major gaps in global health preparedness — gaps evidence in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. ...more
I found this book to be particularly scarey, since the information in the book was given to the author by the world health organization. He wrote the book at their request. You might not sleep again. It prompted me to start knocking off items on my bucket list, just in case. ...more
Excelent account of the origins of flu and pandemics that applies also to COVID. Learn about failed attempts in Asia to fight them, and attempts to cover up the failures. How corporate agriculture has been an imnportant part of the problem, and steps to take to prevent the next one. ...more