Book Description
A thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London-and a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science, and the modern world.
From the dynamic thinker routinely compared to Malcolm Gladwell, E. O. Wilson, and James Gleick, The Ghost Map is a riveting page-turner with a real-life historical hero that brilliantly illuminates the intertwined histories of the spread of viruses, rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry. These are topics that have long obsessed Steven Johnson, and The Ghost Map is a true triumph of the kind of multidisciplinary thinking for which he's become famous-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.
The Ghost Map takes place in the summer of 1854. A devastating cholera outbreak seizes London just as it is emerging as a modern city: more than 2 million people packed into a ten-mile circumference, a hub of travel and commerce, teeming with people from all over the world, continually pushing the limits of infrastructure that's outdated as soon as it's updated. Dr. John Snow-whose ideas about contagion had been dismissed by the scientific community-is spurred to intense action when the people in his neighborhood begin dying. With enthralling suspense, Johnson chronicles Snow's day-by-day efforts, as he risks his own life to prove how the epidemic is being spread.
When he creates the map that traces the pattern of outbreak back to its source, Dr. Snow didn't just solve the most pressing medical riddle of his time. He ultimately established a precedent for the way modern city-dwellers, city planners, physicians, and public officials think about the spread of disease and the development of the modern urban environment.
The Ghost Map is an endlessly compelling and utterly gripping account of that London summer of 1854, from the microbial level to the macrourban-theory level-including, most important, the human level.
Customer Reviews:
A Solid History of Science Book.......2007-09-07
This is the story of Dr. John Snow and the development of modern epidemiology and germ theory. As a history of science read, this book is very good. It has lots of drama and reads like a mystery. I did learn about Snows research into anesthesia, something I didn't know about. Most of the book centers around the cholera outbreak in London and Snow's work to counter the generally accepted miasma theory. This is a great book for young researchers to see how prevailing paradigms can be completely wrong, yet generally accepted and even unquestioned.
Thinking outside the box.......2007-09-06
This is a very interesting book on several levels. It is a fairly detailed case study of a cholera outbreak in London in 1854 and of the attempts of two dedicated men, one an esteemed physician and the other a neighborhood Anglican priest, to determine the cause, which turned out to be contaminated water. Once they do determine the cause, they run headlong into the established scientific orthodoxies of the day, which center around the "miasma" theory, a vague notion that such epidemics are caused by the overall environment in which they occur, sometimes the air, sometimes living conditions, and even, in a classic case of blaming the victims, by the characters of the victims. Eventually the scientific establishment is won over to the waterborne theory, but not after long hard fights, and not until after many more deaths could have been prevented.
The central points that I got out of this book are these:
1) Pre-scientific modes of thinking prevailed in the scientific establishment until well into the 19th century, or 1854 as we see here. The idea of empirically testing hypotheses seems not to have occurred to many scientists of the day.
2) The importance of "thinking outside the box," of not accepting conventional or established ideas just because they are established.
3) Revolutions in scientific thinking, or paradigm shifts, as Thomas Kuhn called them, rarely occur easily. Often the revolutionary idea is ignored, then ridiculed, then fought against, then eventually accepted, often by a later generation which had not been schooled in the conventional ways of thinking.
All told an interesting book, well recommended. I did not give it 5 stars because the author can at times move away from the immediate narrative to more abstract matters that can often be tedious. The book can be redundant as well. But altogether a good read.
Fascinating topic, redundant writing style, too little about the map.......2007-07-28
I will omit a synopsis of the book. This book has been assigned as incoming Freshman reading for my local university, thus my specific purpose in reading it. The general idea of an "historical medical mystery" presented in non-fiction form was a very reasonable one for a book. The quest for the origin of the Cholera epidemic in 1854 London by Whitehead and Snow was presented in a an exciting captivating way. The writing style was painful for me. Quite a bit of the material was repeated over and over in subsequent chapters. When I put the book down and picked it up again, I would wonder if I had lost my place (ie, a deja vu-type of experience) as I was certain I had read the material previously. Although there is some info on the making of the map, it was a small part of the book's focus. Truly, my greatest objection is the way the editor allowed the author to roam wildly. I believe this book will be viewed as a painful reading experience for 18 yo college students, not one that would offer stimulation for future reading of medical mysteries nor historical fiction. In general, I could not recommend this book to the general public; those interested in medicine/epidemics/certain mysteries, might enjoy it.
A rare find.......2007-07-24
This book was one of those rare finds tht do not come along very often. I read it in 2 days - I simply could not put it down. In the beginning of the book, when he was describing London in the early 19th century, I was reading along while crinkling my nose and whispering "oh my gosh" the whole time. I was simply entranced.
Johnson did start to pontificate a bit at the end - this could easily have been left out, and frankly I finally gave up reading all of his views at the end of the book. But, that is certainly no reason to miss this fantastic read ... and gritty and real historical view of what 19th century cities were TRULY like.
Overall a fantastic book!
Wonderful storyteller but with a broken crystal ball perhaps.......2007-07-09
This was a very well written book about a subject that could cause stomaches to turn. The way the author told the story kept it interesting in spite of the sordid details of the disease and it's ravages on the human body.
Several have commented about the ending of the book where the author takes out his crystal ball and sort of predicts the future of the urban environment, but even that I found fascinating, if not a bit hopeful.
He did touch on the use of fossil fuels, but he seems to think that term only means gasoline ( his mention of New York City being the greenest city on the planet since it's citizens have a low gasoline consumption ) when in fact fossil fuels include, but are not limited to; fuel oil, natural gas, coal, gasoline, diesel and turbine fuels. All of which New Yorkers are huge consumers.
If the cost of energy becomes as expensive as some pessimists suggest, then I think the huge cities will once again become dark, dirty places which will lose huge numbers of citizens.
This book also makes me wonder if 200 years from now algore will be today's Dr. John Snow or Edwin Chadwick in regards to Gullible Warming. My belief is that he and the other Gullible Warming fanatics will be no different than those who subscribed to the "miasma theory of disease" as detailed in this book.
A great read, highly recommended!!
Amazon.com
One-third of Western Europe's population died between 1348 and 1350, victims of the Black Death. Noted medievalist Norman Cantor tells the story of the pandemic and its widespread effects in In the Wake of the Plague.
After giving an overview, Cantor describes various theories about the medical crisis, from contemporary fears of a Jewish conspiracy to poison the water (and the resulting atrocities against European Jews) to a growing belief among modern historians that both bubonic plague and anthrax caused the spiraling death rates. Cantor also details ways in which the Black Death changed history, at both the personal level (family lines dying out) and the political (the Plantagenet kings may well have been able to hold onto France had their resources not been so diminished).
Cantor veers from topic to topic, from dynastic worries to the Dance of Death, and from peasants' rights to Perpendicular Gothic. This makes for amusing reading, though those seeking an orderly narrative may be frustrated. He also seems overly concerned with rumors of homosexual behavior, and his attempt to link the savage method of Edward II's murder to a cooling in global weather is a bit farfetched.
Cantor wears his considerable scholarship lightly, but includes a very useful critical biography for further reading. While not an entry-level text on the Black Death, In the Wake of the Plague will interest readers looking for a broader interpretation of its consequences. --Sunny Delaney
Book Description
The Black Death was the fourteenth century's equivalent of a nuclear war. It wiped out one-third of Europe's population, takingmillion lives. And yet, most of what we know about it is wrong. The details of the Plague etched in the minds of terrified schoolchildren -- the hideous black welts, the high fever, and the awful end by respiratory failure -- are more or less accurate. But what the Plague really was and how it made history remain shrouded in a haze of myths.
Now, Norman Cantor, the premier historian of the Middle Ages, draws together the most recent scientific discoveries and groundbreaking historical research to pierce the mist and tell the story of the Black Death as a gripping, intimate narrative.
Customer Reviews:
Poor writing, poor research.......2007-10-05
This book is sufficiently weak to raise doubts in my mind about the rest of Cantor's work.
"In the Wake of the Plague" reads like an extended version of the class notes for a freshman course. Cantor rambles, offers "insights" that more nearly resemble anecdotes and lets slip his own biases (arguably bigotries) frequently.
Moreover, he routinely fails to offer context which might tend to undermine his own sweeping assertions.
All of the sources are secondary. There is no footnoting. The intended audience is clearly the general public. Fine. But don't show contempt for your readers by writing thinly supported meanderings like this.
Don't waste your money on buying this book .......2007-08-29
Norma Cantor may be the Emeritus Professor of History, Sociology and Comparative Literature at New York University, but he cannot write serious prose about a serious subject. His writing is infantile; it has numerous editorial errors, frequent repetitions and idiotic references (such as the Plague "threatened the stability and viability of civilization. It was as if a neutron bomb had been detonated". Plain crass.
Bottom Line: Don't waste your money on buying this book
Where oh where was the editor?.......2007-08-24
The book was a somewhat enjoyable read, but I think the unedited version must have gone to the printers. I thought perhaps that a high school student wrote this so poor was the writing / grammar. NYTimes Bestseller - well, people will buy anything.
I found the editorializing comments towards religious people of the time to be condescending and distracting.
A plague upon your book, sir!.......2007-06-12
Professor Cantor is supposed to be a gentleman of academic standing, and, one supposes, learning. That he wrote a book of such ridiculously infantile proportions is a disgrace both to him, and to the company that saw fit to publish it. Neither seems to have any respect for the reader whatsoever. I pass over the juvenile summarisation of the history of England's Plantagent Kings (although one wonders whether Prof. Cantor has ever bothered to read primary accounts of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket), the insulting references to medieval religious attitudes, and the allegedly humourous asides that would produce sycophantic laughter only from students who need a decent grade. What had this reader throwing the book across the room before being half way through it, and being glad I had only borrowed it from the library not actually given over any money for it, was the learned medivialist's assertion that the largest gothic church in the world is in New York City. Um, that would be a gothic-style church, or perhaps even neo-gothic, what with the whole point of the new world being that it wasn't medival europe...
A question.......2007-06-08
Is ther any actual proof that there are more Eurpoean people who are immune to the HIV virus (or the 'AIDS disease' as Cantor puts it), because their ancestors had natural immunity to, or (obviously) survived, the plague? Can plague, which is bacterial, have any baring on peoples' immunity to a virus? I've never heard this before? Presumably it's being posited as a reason Europe is not as badly afflicted as Asia and Africa?
Book Description
No disease the world has ever known even remotely resembles the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Presumed to have begun when sick farm animals infected soldiers in Kansas, spreading and mutating into a lethal strain as troops carried it to Europe, it exploded across the world with unequaled ferocity and speed. It killed more people in twenty weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty years; it killed more people in a year than the plagues of the Middle Ages killed in a century. Victims bled from the ears and nose, turned blue from lack of oxygen, suffered aches that felt like bones being broken, and died. In the United States, where bodies were stacked without coffins on trucks, nearly seven times as many people died of influenza as in the First World War.
In his powerful new book, award-winning historian John M. Barry unfolds a tale that is magisterial in its breadth and in the depth of its research, and spellbinding as he weaves multiple narrative strands together. In this first great collision between science and epidemic disease, even as society approached collapse, a handful of heroic researchers stepped forward, risking their lives to confront this strange disease. Titans like William Welch at the newly formed Johns Hopkins Medical School and colleagues at Rockefeller University and others from around the country revolutionized American science and public health, and their work in this crisis led to crucial discoveries that we are still using and learning from today.
The Washington PostÂ's Jonathan Yardley said BarryÂ's last book can “change the way we think.” The Great Influenza may also change the way we see the world.
Customer Reviews:
The real version of "The Stand" by Stephen King.......2007-09-11
I really enjoyed this book as it showed in real life how fast a flu epidemic can spread. One has to realize that this epidemic took place in basically horse and buggy days, people did not travel as much. If you look into your family history, as I did, you may find a relative who died during this time period. After I read this book I discovered a graveyard for a turn of the century orphanage. There were so many children that died, all they could do is put numbers on the gravestones. It made me think how fast a flu epidemic could travel today. The references and facts were an eye opener.
Wow! Very Important Read.......2007-08-31
This book will definitely really make you reconsider the vulnerability of society to an epidemic. What really surprised me was how this single epidemic really kick-started the modern health care system. I had no idea that 100 years ago, it was easier to get certified to be a doctor than it was to go to college - quite literally one could go through a correspondence course. It also traces the development and speaks to the foundation of institutions who, our time, are revered for their stature in modern medicine, such as John Hopkins. It covers a great many aspects of medicine and epidemiology. What this book does best, and is truly refreshing for a history book, is provide insight into the thinking of the time - what role politics and political decisions made in the outbreaks in certain cities. What is truly horrifying is how really vulnerable populations are to influenza. Although we understand it better, actual treatment is still quite limited (prevention seems to be the best hope). A small mutation in the virus could again hammer populations around the world. I took on this book because my grandfather's family was so badly devastated by it. I never really asked enough about it before he passed away and now I wish I had. I recommend this book to anyone interested in epidemiology, medicine, particularly how medicine has advanced in the last 100 years, particularly in the US, or if, like me, your family history may have been effected by this. The most frightening aspect is the astounding speed with which this virus spread and the corresponding mortality rate that it brought with it. Tie that in with its extreme, and I mean extreme contagiousness and one finds a really frightening scenario. I can't imagine a world where people are dying so fast they can't even bury the bodies, doctors and nurses are afflicted so badly that they die almost as fast as the patients, that almost nobody really understands how the contagion is spread and people shun one another - neighbors, even family members. What is even more frightening is that this happened less than one hundred years ago. It really makes you think. It really makes you consider how truly vulnerable we all are.
a true horror story.......2007-08-17
First, with all the fearmongering about pandemics in the last couple of years, it is nice to read about the most deadly epidemic the world has ever known. It's not real comforting, but it is better than the fear Fox News was pandering at Rita/Katrina and the bird flu. It's a great book, one that should have been written, though it could have used a better editor. The book does jump around and there is a lot that probably could have been cut, but it is a great book dealing with a complex subject.
Frightening and informative.......2007-08-13
A facinating window into a horrifying period that we've almost intentionally downplayed in our histories. It's especially worthwhile given the recent concerns about an inevitable pandemic. We are better equipped in some ways to deal with a worldwide pandemic, but in many others we are even more fragile. Viruses, like trade, move much more quickly now.
Excellent Book.......2007-08-01
I learned a vast amount about disease, the medical system, and medecine in general. One of the best and most informative books I have ever read. Well-researched and easy to read.
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Introduction To Clinical Research
CATHERINE DEANGELIS
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The CRA¿s Guide to Monitoring Clinical Research
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Designing Clinical Research: An Epidemiologic Approach
ASIN: 0195062493 |
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Here is an ideal introduction to research methods for clinicians, fellows, residents, and medical students. Written in a clear, easy-to-understand style, it outlines the steps that should be followed in order to organize and implement a typical investigation. Emphasizing the anticipation of future difficulties and the benefits of early planning, the authors discuss the types of questions that should be asked, how to design a study, and methods of data acquisition and analysis. Many examples are presented to illustrate the textual material, and extensive bibliography sections at the end of each chapter direct readers to published articles and texts that will provide further information.
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The Cambridge World History Of Human Disease
KENNETH, ED. KIPLE
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Invisible Enemies, Revised Edition: Stories of Infectious Disease
ASIN: 0521332869 |
Book Description
Combining recent medical discoveries with historical and geographical scholarship, The Cambridge World History of Human Disease traces the concept of disease throughout history and in each major world region. It offers the history and geography of each significant human disease--both historical and contemporary--from AIDS to yellow fever, and touches on the variety of approaches that different medical traditions have used to fight disease. Accessible to laypeople and specialists alike, The Cambridge World History of Human Disease offers an extraordinary glimpse of what is known about human health as the twenty-first century begins. This important book is now being reissued with a fresh new jacket design.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding Reference Source.......2000-03-30
This tome is exhaustive in the diseases it covers and the way it covers them. Kiple provides epidemiological patterns, history and geography, and skeletal manifestations on each of the conditions he and the board of editors describes. What the book lacks in pictures and diagrams, it makes up for in length and completeness of description. A helpful bibliography is provided. This book is well worth the price!
Amazon.com
A book chronicling one of the worst human disasters in recorded history really has no business being entertaining. But John Kelly's The Great Mortality is a page-turner despite its grim subject matter and graphic detail. Credit Kelly's animated prose and uncanny ability to drop his reader smack in the middle of the 14th century, as a heretofore unknown menace stalks Eurasia from "from the China Sea to the sleepy fishing villages of coastal Portugal [producing] suffering and death on a scale that, even after two world wars and twenty-seven million AIDS deaths worldwide, remains astonishing." Take Kelly's vivid description of London in the fall of 1348: "A nighttime walk across Medieval London would probably take only twenty minutes or so, but traversing the daytime city was a different matter.... Imagine a shopping mall where everyone shouts, no one washes, front teeth are uncommon and the shopping music is provided by the slaughterhouse up the road." Yikes, and that's before just about everything with a pulse starts dying and piling up in the streets, reducing the population of Europe by anywhere from a third to 60 percent in a few short years. In addition to taking readers on a walking tour through plague-ravaged Europe, Kelly heaps on the ancillary information and every last bit of it is captivating. We get a thorough breakdown of the three types of plagues that prey on humans; a detailed account of how the plague traveled from nation to nation (initially by boat via flea-infested rats); how floods (and the appalling hygiene of medieval people) made Europe so susceptible to the disease; how the plague triggered a new social hierarchy favoring women and the proletariat but also sparked vicious anti-Semitism; and especially, how the plague forever changed the way people viewed the church. Engrossing, accessible, and brimming with first-hand accounts drawn from the Middle Ages, The Great Mortality illuminates and inspires. History just doesn't get better than that. --Kim Hughes
Book Description
La moria grandissima began its terrible journey across the European and Asian continents in 1347, leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake. Five years later, twenty-five million people were dead, felled by the scourge that would come to be called the Black Death. The Great Mortality is the extraordinary epic account of the worst natural disaster in European history -- a drama of courage, cowardice, misery, madness, and sacrifice that brilliantly illuminates humankind's darkest days when an old world ended and a new world was born.
Customer Reviews:
Much More Entertaining than you would Expect it to be.......2007-08-10
It takes a certain personality to write about death and disease, but it takes an altogether odd personality to write about a pandemic and make it interesting. Kelly has done a whole lot of research about the pandemic and it's progress from the Steppes of central asia until it finally peters out after four years of obliterating up to half of the population of Europe.
Like any one, you would ask the traditional who, what, where, when and why? Kelly does a superb job of blending the answers together in an easily readable and knowledgeable way. He start where the disease begins, and then goes into explaining the different theories of it's causes that have been postulated over the years. He gives his own opinion as to whose theories he believes and then explains why he doesn't agree with others.
His description of how the disease began and how it was able to have such an overall effect on Europe. More than anything, he explains how the years preceding the outbreak had set-up the conditions for it's maximized effect. Prior years heavy rains and poor harvests had led to starvation and people living on the edge. In poor physical condition to begin with, and many having lingering effects from a famine in their childhoods, large numbers of Europeans had no ability to fight off the disease.
In addition, the unsanitary nature of European cities, with garbage and fecal matter mixing in the streets with animal carcases and the detritus of butchers just thrown in the street created a paradise for the rats that carried the disease vectors (fleas) with them. Add to this mess, the idea that bathing was unnecessary and probably dangerous and you have the makings of a paradise for the disease.
But why were men of science and logic unable to see what the base cause was? Mostly because they were stuck in the paradigms of the times and no one could think their way out of the box they had all put themselves in. The only major organization that could have helped by crossing over political lines was the Catholic Church. And the Church as much as anyone spent a lot of time running away from the problem while losing many of their brightest people to the disease. Those who were left were overwhelmed by the enormity of death and destruction the disease caused.
If your first thought is that this is a payment from God for ungodliness then you've already stopped yourself dead in the water. How do you stop something that is the wrath of an omnipotent deity? You don't. You cower in your little hovel and hope he misses you because you are too insignificant to be worth bothering with.
Or you look for someone to blame it on. Lunatics, Lepers, Jews? Yes that's the answer, this is a conspiracy of the Jews. So lets kill them (torture confessions out of them first) and at the same time we can also steal all their gold and possessions. They killed Christ and they are probably trying to kill all of the Christians too. Give credit to Pope Clement VI who sent out many papal bulls denouncing the destruction of the Jews and asking the local priests to protect them. It did no good but it's more that a lot of other Popes (Pius XII) have done.
In the end, the explanation as to why this pandemic was so destructive as compared to others where the death toll was never above 15%, is yet to be undiscovered. There are lots of theories and counter-theories but no one can say for sure.
Grotesque and fascinating tale to entertain.......2007-03-19
"The Great Mortality" succeeds as entertaining popular history; it is not entirely accurate biology and epidemiology. Nor is it a comparative analysis of differences in the many areas savaged by the Plague.
Other works by Norman Cantor and by Robert S. Gottfried are also of value. Kelly is more fun to read which appears to be its purpose. Along with something of the historical and social context he includes lively stories and experiences of those living - and dying - at the time.
More case studies in other locations and cultures that have differing medical and social responses potentially could reveal much. There is an older interesting study of Egypt and perhaps others of China (?), perhaps even of India (?) but no comparative analysis that could be fascinating and revealing.
Historical errors raise concerns about the author.......2007-02-28
While this is a brisk read, as a good popular history should be, I am concerned by errors in the text. One example suffices. In Chapter 2, Kelly describes the infamous Fourth Crusade thusly: "Venetian authorities offered a group of French Crusaders free passage to the Holy Land, then rerouted the Crusaders east to capture Constantinople." Wrong on virtually every count. Then as now, Venetians gave nothing away free. The Doge and the leaders of the Crusade agreed on a (healthy) price for transport by sea to Egypt (not Palestine). When the troops arrived at the port, however, the Crusaders proved to be short of funds, and were unable to raise the balance. Only then were they diverted to the sack of Zara and then of Constantinople as a means of paying their debt to Venice. See Norwich, "A History of Venice" for the details.
Now, if Kelly can get an episode as well-known and well-documented as the Fourth Crusade so wrong, how can one trust his judgment on other issues? Especially on such issues as epidemiology, which few readers (myself included) are likely to know much about?
I also note that the author apparently personally responded to one of the negative reviews posted here. I would rather that he respond to the one that accuses him of plagiarism. I do hope it's unfounded.
Too choppy to keep interest.......2007-01-08
This book started out interesting, I was drawn in after reading possibly the most graphic paragraph I'd ever encountered, but the author skips around so much that you can't find a thread of narrative to follow. It makes the book confusing and hard to remain interested in.
Fasacinating, but choppy in places.......2007-01-02
Europe - and eurasia - suffered a devastating pestilence in the mid-14th century, with an estimated 25% of its population dying. The spread of the buboic plague from Caffa to Moscow is graphically recounted in Kelly's _The Great Mortality_.
The book follows the course of the plague chronologically, city by city, citing sources while giving the reader a feel for the time period. The book is at its strongest when it discusses the vectors, spread and effects of the disease on European society. Relating the individual stories of plague sufferers and survivors is also a strength, and gives a personalizes the losses inflicted by the disease.
It is at its weakest, however, when the author literally gives "voice" to the deceased, straying from the historical record. This was most apparent in the sections dealing with the plague in Britain, curious, as this was in the latter part of the book. The controversey about the nature of the plague also detracted from the narrative - an addendum or afterword would have been a more apporpriate place to discuss historical semantics.
I do recommend it - the historical scholarship is first rate, and on the whole it reads more like a novel than a history.
Book Description
In the bestselling tradition of In the Heart of the Sea, The Colony reveals the untold history of the infamous American leprosy colony on Molokai and of the extraordinary people who struggled to survive under the most horrific circumstances.
In 1866, twelve men and women and one small child were forced aboard a leaky schooner and cast away to a natural prison on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Two weeks later, a dozen others were exiled, and then forty more, and then a hundred more. Tracked by bounty hunters and torn screaming from their families, the luckless were loaded into shipboard cattle stalls and abandoned in a lawless place where brutality held sway. Many did not have leprosy, and most of those who did were not contagious, yet all were caught in a shared nightmare. The colony had little food, little medicine, and very little hope. Exile continued for more than a century, the longest and deadliest instance of medical segregation in American history. Nearly nine thousand people were banished to the colony, trapped by pounding surf and armed guards and the highest sea cliffs in the world. Twenty-eight live there still.
John Tayman tells the fantastic saga of this horrible and hopeful place -- at one time the most famous community in the world -- and of the individuals involved. From the very first exile -- a gentle part-time lawyer trapped in an unjust ordeal beyond his imagination -- to the last remaining residents, the narrative is peopled by presidents and kings, cruel lawmen and pioneering doctors, and brave souls who literally gave their lives to help. A stunning cast includes the martyred Father Damien, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt, John Wayne, and more. The result is a searing tale of survival and bravery, and a testament to the power of faith, compassion, and heroism.
Customer Reviews:
"Unclean! Unclean!".......2007-06-05
I suppose that the government officials in Hawaii in the 1860s assumed that they were doing the right thing by isolating lepers on an almost uninhabited island. Compared to the biblical era of rags, bells, and calls of "unclean, unclean!", they may have been somewhat correct. What they didn't realize, however, was the human toll living on that island would take on those people. It's actually amazing that so many surivied for a long time, considering the conditions. Of course, eveyone has heard of Father Damien, but the story doesn't begin, or end, with him.There were those who dedicated their lives to helping these people, and were successful , mostly. It's a grim and harrowing tale that this well-written book tells, but it should always remind us that even the best of intentions don't always turn our the way that we had intended them.
I Plead for Caution.......2007-06-03
I am little more than 100 pages into this book and already I can find more than a dozen cases where I question the author's over-dramatization and/or artistic license. I caution everyone who may read this and--goodness forbid, choose take it as a definative work of "history"--to approach the book with the skepticism it deserves. From the first pages of the preface--where the author quotes Jack London entirely out of context and leads the reader to believe London believed something he did not--to the blinding acceptance of newpaper accounts of the time as entirely factual (when, in fact, newspapers were notoriously biased in the days of the haole-controlled government), this book is already riddle with enough suspect material to make me shy away from it entirely. I'm certain Mr. Tayman did much research, but whether he has distilled it into a factual account is highly suspect to me at this point. It reeks of sensationism and I implore those who choose to read it to keep that in mind. This may indeed be more fiction than substative fact.
The Colony.......2007-05-28
It was well written and easy to follow. A lot of information in the book which I did not know. If there is/are anyone still afraid of leprosy should read it.
audio version of The Colony.......2007-05-11
I RECENTLY BOUGHT THE AUDIO VERSION OF THE COLONY, A NON-FICTION ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY OF THE LEPER COLONY ON MOLOKA'I. THE BOOK IS TERRIFIC. BUT THE READER IS NOT. HE COMMITS THE CRIME OF MIS-PRONOUNCING ALL OF THE HAWAIIAN PLACE NAMES, FAMILY NAMES, AND WORDS. HE EVEN MISSPRONOUNCES THE ISLAND NAME OF MOLOKA'I!!!!!! THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THIS FAILURE TO GET THE PRONUNCIATIONS CORRECTLY!!!!!!!!I REALIZE THAT THE READING ACTOR'S IGNORANCE IS NOT DIRECTLY THE FAULT OF AMAZON. I WOULD LIKE, HOWEVER, AMAZON TO PASS THIS COMPLAINT TO THE AUDIO RECORDING DEPARTMENT OF THE PUBLISHER, SO THAT IN FUTURE THEY HIRE ACTORS WHO READ WORDS IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE WITH ACCURACY.
A must read!.......2007-04-12
I originally listened to this book on tape because my son spent two months bumming around Hawaii and I wanted to have my 'own' Hawaiian experience. I was so taken by the factual accounts of the brutality and the lives of the Hansen's patients, that I am buying extra copies for my four children - I want each of them to be introduced to a part of American history that hasn't been taught in their classrooms. Wonderfully researched and well written, this book is a must read - especially today, in the face of AIDS.
Book Description
The Black Death in Europe, from its arrival in 1347-52 through successive waves into the early modern period, has been seriously misunderstood. It is clear from the compelling evidence presented in this revolutionary account that the Black Death was almost any disease other than the rat-based bubonic plague whose bacillus was discovered in 1894. Since the late nineteenth century, the rat and flea have stood wrongly accused as the agents of transmission and historians and scientists have uncritically imposed the epidemiology of modern plague on the past. Unshackled from this misconception, The Black Death Transformed turns to its subject afresh, using sources spread across a huge geographical tract, from Lisbon to Uzbekistan, Sicily to Scotland: more than 40,000 death documents (from last wills and testaments to the earliest surviving burial records), over 400 chronicles, 250 plague tracts, 50 saints' lives, merchant letters, and much more. These sources confirm the terror of the medieval plague, the rapidity of its spread (unlike modern plague), and the utter despondency left in the wake of its first strike. But they also point to significant differences between medieval and modern plague, none more significant than the ability of humans to acquire natural immunity to the former but not the latter.
Customer Reviews:
The Truth about the Black Death.......2004-12-19
I feel compelled to counter the San Diegan's review. While there is a lot of information in there to buttress the author's apparently overwhelmingly convincing premise, it is true that only the most statistical minded will find all of the quantitive information intriguing. I skipped over most of the charts and diagrams, but there is no denying that much of the author's recounting is facinating, especially with regards to the social implications of each plague outbreak. Anyone interested in the middle ages should read (most of) this book.
Mindnumbingly comprehensive.......2004-08-17
"It is clear from the evidence presented in this account that the Black Death was almost any disease other than the rat-based bubonic plague whose bacillus was discovered in 1894."
The author starts off well and the premise is fascinating and well supported. No one can claim that the author has not done his homework. However, the catalog of study after study may play well for an academic treatise, it becomes monotonous and mind-numbing for the rest of the world.
I can't imagine someone with out an advanced degree and a really keen interest in the research of the black plague finding this book enjoyable. After reading the first five chapters or so I ended up reading the first two pages of each chapter and moving on.
Definitely would not recommend this for the lay person. Extremely marginal recommendation even for a scientist unless you are really specialized in this area.
Average customer rating:
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Death and Disease in the Ancient City (Routledge Classical Monographs)
Valerie M. Hope
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 0415214270 |
Book Description
This innovative volume draws on recent research in archaeology, ancient history and the history of medicine to discuss how people in the ancient world understood and dealt with illness and death in the urban environment.
Book Description
This brilliant work of social history reveals the hidden impact of syphilis on many of history's famous figures--from Wilde to Hitler to Abraham Lincoln--and its influence on the culture they created.
Was Beethoven experiencing syphilitic euphoria when he composed "Ode to Joy"? Did van Gogh paint "Crows Over the Wheatfield" in a fit of diseased madness right before he shot himself?
Was syphilis a stowaway on Columbus's return voyage to Europe? The answers to these provocative questions are likely "yes," claims Deborah Hayden in this riveting investigation of the effects of the "Pox" on the lives and works of world figures from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries. Writing with remarkable insight and narrative flair, Hayden argues that biographers and historians have vastly underestimated the influence of what Thomas Mann called "this exhilarating yet wasting disease." Shrouded in secrecy, syphilis was accompanied by wild euphoria and suicidal depression, megalomania and paranoia, profoundly affecting sufferers' worldview, their sexual behavior and personality, and, of course, their art. Deeply informed and courageously argued, Pox has already been heralded as a major contribution to our understanding of genius, madness, and creativity.
Customer Reviews:
Oh Please!!!.......2007-06-04
I completely agree with the reader who reviewed this book on January 30, 2003. The conclusions suggested in this book are silly and irresponsible. It is written by someone who is obviously not a health care professional. She also has little understanding of the nature of creation of great artistic works. This book is little more than bringing a tabloid home from the grocery store. Can she really think that such superb artistic accomplishment is the result of syphilis? If this is true, considering the infection rates of previous generations, we should have had myriads more artistic geniuses running around. If you are inclined to take this book seriously in any way, please do some additional study. I would suggest starting with a wonderful book on musical genius, "The Possessor and the Possessed" by Peter Kivy. This academic book addresses the musical genius of Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven seriously and is part of the Yale series on the philosophy and theory of art. I am sure as time passes, Deborah Hayden's book will be dismissed as the worst of journalism.
Let us look at Beethoven for instance. Beethoven was a child prodigy and gave his first piano concert in his eight year. His talent for improvisation was recognized very early. One of Beethoven's early teachers refused to teach Beethoven very long because he said the youngster already knew everything he was trying to teach him. Mozart, after listening to a young Beethoven on the piano, said to others in the room, "Watch that boy. Someday he will give the world something to talk about." Goethe, the famous German poet and dramatist, said after meeting Beethoven many years later, "Never have I met an artist of such spiritual concentration and intensity."
Please, fellow readers, be discerning in what you read and what you take from it. I have read approximately 35 books on Beethoven, including biographies written by Beethoven scholars past and present and not one has ever alluded to something as absurd as the ideas put forth by Ms. Hayden. Never believe something simply because it in print. Question, research, and find the truth. Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to listen to some of Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies and hear actual manifestations of genius while you are at it.
POX:Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis.......2006-12-03
An incredible read of a disease that may affect so many of our lives today from infected parents and grandparents. The authors research and insights are revealing and insightful. I have found syphilis in my family doing genealogy research and Deborah Haydon has helped illunminate my family history and will be highlighted in my new book Lotties Lot. Nancy O'Connor PhD
Well Written Study About Syphilis History and its Effect on Great Historical Personalities.......2006-03-01
This book is well written and guides the reader through a detailed investigation about the possible effects of Syphilis on great historical personalities like Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Baudelaire, Abraham Lincoln, Flaubert Maupassant van Gogh, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Karen Blixen, James Joyce, and Adolf Hitler. Many of these historical giants were burdened by toxic medicines that ultimately lead to insanity and death.
Repetitious But Interesting.......2005-07-28
Until the mid-twentieth century, when it was shown that penicillin was an effective treatment, syphilis was one of the most common diseases in Europe and North America. Though the point is still debated, it seems likely that syphilis was the one epidemic Native Americans were able to give to their conquerors in the face of smallpox, measles and the rest that devastated their populations. Unlike the European diseases, however, which were quickly and disproportionately deadly, syphilis, after its sudden and sweeping introduction, quickly mutated into a chronic illness. Though ultimately fatal in some cases, syphilis often allowed carriers to live for many decades after the initial infection, slowly tearing the body apart. It is the story of this disease that has become largely ignored in modern scholarship that Ms. Hayden tells in Pox.
There is much of interest in this book, particularly in the first section. Here, Ms. Hayden recounts what is known of the introduction of syphilis into Europe, including a lively discussion indicating that Columbus himself may have been among the first syphilitics. Even more interesting is her description of the disease itself from the signs of initial infection to the often gradual, extensive and painful deterioration that accompanies the progress of the disease ending in madness and death. She notes that there are two key problems in an analysis of syphilis: the fact that syphilis is "the great imitator" (meaning that its extensive symptoms are often easily mistaken for other diseases, especially as these symptoms may occur decades after the initial infection) and the fact that patients admitting to syphilis was rare because of the social stigma attached. So understanding the full impact of syphilis on Western culture is problematic. And here is where the book becomes less compelling.
The last two sections of the book take us through the biographies of some important syphilitics like the Lincolns (Abraham & Mary Todd), Oscar Wilde, Nietzsche, Beethoven and van Gogh. If they are syphilitics. In many cases it's not known for sure though Ms. Hayden attempts to make the case. And, proved or not, she attempts to show how syphilis--if that's what it was--would have had important impact on their lives and work. Her most extensive and controversial case surrounds that of Adolf Hitler as having been infected as a young man (possibly by a Jewish prostitute) and how the last years of World War II saw his deterioration.
The problems with these biographies are two-fold. First, is the simple matter of the difficulty in writing something interesting about each person. These biographies are extraordinarily repetitious: infection and illness, latency and then steadily worsening heath problems as the spirochetes take over. Second, they are filled with so much speculation. Even in the rare case where syphilis is a known infection, as Ms. Hayden admits, there is no guarantee that the following health problems are syphilitic in nature. They might be. All of this speculation begins to make the reader wonder if this is all fact or fiction.
Still, Ms. Hayden often makes a compelling if not entirely convincing case. Certainly, she makes the case that it is a subject that deserves more interest, especially from biographers of these various subjects. There is no doubt that illness can have a great impact on a person's life, art and politics and Ms. Hayden deserves credit for bringing this important disease back to light.
genuinely interesting and well-researched, if unfocused.......2004-07-14
PERSPECTIVE: physician with interest in infectious diseases
Ms. Hayden's thesis here is an interesting one - not only did syphilis afflict many well-known historical figures, but its late-stage effects on the mind (as she terms it, "syphilitic euphoria") contributed to the creative zenith of authors and aritists, as well as shaping the lives and deeds of the powerful and influential. The first section of the book deals with the historical origins (and controversies) surrounding the origins of syphilis outbreaks in the late 1400's, as well as a reasonably adequate lay description of the disease. The main section deals with several figures from the 19th and 20th century, including well-known composers, philosophers, authors, artists, and political figures, none of whom have been confirmed to have syphilis, but suspected of such to greater or lesser degrees. In each case, she makes an argument for their infection and its effect on their lives and work, based on available historical documents, medical records, etc... The final sections include brief paragraphs discussing confirmed famous syphilitics, a list of general clues the author used in analyzing each case, and a reproduction of a 1926 case study on a patient.
Overall, the novel is flows well, and is easy and entertaining to read. Ms. Hayden's research is extensive and well-documented, and while she is not formally medically trained, she has certainly pored over medical texts from previous centuries up to today in order to educate herself and her readers.
Despite this, there are several issues of note. The "syphilitic euphoria" as a genesis for works of genius, medically, seems a bit of a strech in both its existance (as she characterizes it) and influence. It seems as though she loses her focus at some point - while earlier chapters, such as those on Schubert and Nietzsche, seem goal-oriented towards proving the presence of the infection, and its role in their work, other chapters (Lincoln and Hitler, notably) seem more like meandering discussions that, while interesting, ultimately come to no real conclusion as to the role of the disease. Additionally, while she seems convinced herself that each subject indeed had syphilis, and she works to makes a good case for each, some of her leaps of fact and logic seem a bit long. Ms. Hayden does occasionally make factual medical errors when discussing certain symptoms and their associations. Along those lines, she seems much more comfortable discussing such facts in the less precise medical terminology of "days gone by" than in present-day terms - this may be rooted in both her supposition that modern physicians know nothing of true end-stage syphilis (because we've been able to treat the infection early, successfully, with antibiotics for many decades, although how she can read the same old syphilis texts that physicians can, and be better than them at its diagnosis is a bit of a mystery to me) and that less-specific terminology allows her to make her cases better. The last sections also strike me as "fluff," of mild interest only.
FINAL WORD: The above quibbles aside, there is a lot to enjoy here, especially given Ms. Hayden's excellent historical research and entertaining writing style. A worthwhile read, but keep in mind that a lot of the author's conjectures are just that - conjectures. Buy it, check it out from the library, or buy it and donate it to your local library.
Books:
- The Goal
- The God Delusion
- The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot
- The Human Record: Sources of Global History Volume II: Since 1500
- The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World
- The Knight at Dawn (Magic Tree House, No. 2) (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
- The Plot Against America
- The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Islam (and the Crusades) (Politically Incorrect Guides)
- The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma
- The Scotch-Irish: A Social History
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