The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Nov 01, 2010 Alissa rated it liked it

Shelves: public-health

Johnson definitely wrote the book that SHOULD perfectly map (haha) on my interests: the history of epidemiology and the history of cities. What he actually did was a real surface version of both. There are requisite Jane Jacobs mentions, some discussion of public health history, but ultimately I felt like his approach totally fell flat for me.

My biggest annoyance was his conclusions and epilogue. Rather than discuss the importance of the epidemiologic shift and what miasma-based approaches coul ...more

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May 04, 2019 Denise Cormaney rated it liked it

Shelves: arlington-55plus-book-group

3.5 stars. This is like a lot of non-fiction books: it would’ve made a fascinating article in The Atlantic. There wasn’t enough to fill a book, so parts felt tedious. That said, it is fascinating, and Johnson is the master of making you think about the world in new ways.

Do you ever marvel at the clean, drinkable water coming out of your tap, on demand? Do you ponder the wonders and complexities of sewage systems in large cities, systems that allow human beings to live in urban centers? Do you th ...more

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Mar 09, 2012 Alison rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, z-md-elibrary-audio, z2014_reread

This is a book that I think I would have gotten more out of had I read it instead of listened to it. However, I think quite a bit of it is due to the fact that I listened to much of it while on a cross-country plane trip, and dozed off a few times. The author tells the story of a cholera epidemic in London, and talks about how the scientists and physicians of the time dealt with it, and ultimately figured out that it was the water from a particular public pump that was the problem. At the end th ...more

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