About this title: Bestselling author Johnson illuminates the intertwined histories of the spread of cholera in 19th-century London, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry, offering both a riveting history and a powerful explanation of how it has shaped the world of today.
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Your search:Books»The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World(134 available copies)
Description: Good. Purchasing this DVD supports the North Central Regional Library. Thriftbooks and NCRL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Library ID found on DVD and case. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this DVD supports the North Central Regional Library. Thriftbooks and NCRL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Library ID found on DVD and case. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this DVD supports the North Central Regional Library. Thriftbooks and NCRL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Library ID found on DVD and case. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this DVD supports the North Central Regional Library. Thriftbooks and NCRL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Library ID found on DVD and case. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this DVD supports the North Central Regional Library. Thriftbooks and NCRL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Library ID found on DVD and case. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Date Published: 2006-10-19
ISBN-13:9781594489259ISBN:1594489254
Description: Very Good. Dust jacket has slight shelf wear. Inside flap creased. Unmarked, pages clean & bright, binding tight. *Ships Next Business day* read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781594489259ISBN:1594489254
Description: Very Good in Very Good + jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" Very mild wear. Dustjacket with very light edgewear. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index, 299 pp. Text clean & tight. read more
Description: Very Good. 1594482691 Paperback, Condition: Very Good; this book is in very good condition with light curve to the spine / light reading creases to the covers. read more
Description: Very good. Publishers Overstock. A Very Good copy with a Remainder Mark and wear to the extremities. Buy with confidence from an Independent Bookstore where the owners, a husband and wife team, have over 30 years of combined bookselling experience. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Date Published: 2007-10-02
ISBN-13:9781594482694ISBN:1594482691
Description: New. No jacket as issued. New, unread copy with publishers inventory markWe ship 6 days a week, generally within 24 hours; single CDs and DVDs upgraded to 1st class! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781594489259ISBN:1594489254
Description: Fine in very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 299 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: First edition. first paperback edition and printing nov 2007
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9781594482694ISBN:1594482691
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. nice, tight and clean. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 299 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
"In 1854 there was a terrible outbreak of cholera in London. A physician named John Snow studied where the sick lived vs where the uninfected lived, deduced the infection was arising from a particular water well, had the pump handle of the well removed and thereby stopped the epidemic and began the science of epidemiology. That's the story one hears at least. It wasn't really so straightforward. The book fleshes out the details, adds a lot of twiests and turns to the story, and gives a lot of interesting background on life in London at the time. I liked the first two-thirds, which dealt with the above historical event. For some reason, the author spends the last one quarter to one third of the book on a long rambling essay on how he likes living in New York City, terrorism, nuclear war, and the NYC 311 system. I presume he was just padding the book out to make it book-length. But it was pretty annoying to have to wade through the last part after he had done such a good job on the main topic of the book."
"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. And if nothing else, it is worth reading for the sheer fun of cringing at tales of the state of sanitation services (or lack thereof) in Dickensian London."
"The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson is a book that I was eager to buy, as it sounded like a fascinating view of the last great cholera outbreak in London. According to the subtitle, this book is an account of “London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World.”
That’s a pretty good sell.
Indeed, the book lives up to that claim, mostly. It starts out describing London in the mid 1800’s, and the descriptions are bleak.
The Ghost Map largely tells the story of John Snow, who thought otherwise, and used a scientific method of mapping the deaths from a new outbreak of cholera to see if he could trace it back to a source – and did so, finding the Broad Street Well to be the culprit. He was persuasive enough to convince the city to turn off the well, and in doing so, managed to be the first to use a scientific method to alter public policy. At the same time, a man named Reverend Whitehead was doing a similar investigation – and while diametrically opposed to Snow’s approach, largely came up with the same conclusions.
The Ghost Map paints this story very well, but it is not a perfect book. It repeats some facts several times, as if this had been originally written as a series of articles. And in the epilogue, Johnson somehow brings up terrorism, the internet and climate change, among other things. He does a damn good job in talking about them…but the relevance is a bit strained. A better approach would have been making a shorter book, and a tighter read. Finally, it’s hard to believe this, but while the “ghost map” is reproduced in this book, it’s actually easy to miss – given its importance in the story, that’s a serious oversight by the publisher.
Overall, a very interesting read with a few flaws. Definitely recommended."
"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 was inspired reading about this map of disease. A tiny collection of organisms that are in motion via the movements of victims. This is the maGhost mapGhost mapGhost mapp of sixth grade history books. The march of Rome against the unknowing world. The footprints of their movements through the locations of battles and carnage, bodies littering the fields, marking the movements of an idle civilization around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Gone now like the outbreak of cholera in 1854 London. But my inspiration takes me somewhere else. Into the development of an idea. Consciousness that is also nurtured in the same fashion in the petrie dish of rich ideas. The mapping of an idea that unfolds just as the new idea that curbed the rise of the epidemic in 1854 against the status quo. Competing ideas that are just as vicious, truth won this battle this time."
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