The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson[*]
Feb. 28th, 2011 03:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryWith a title like that you'd think this book would be about the black Plague but in fact it is about Cholera in Victorian, specifically the board street pump outbreak, and how John Snow used it as part of his evidence for the waterborne theory of cholera transmission.
The Ghost Map is not strictly a history, but touches on other topics as well, such as urbanism and why people believe wrong theories (such as the once popular miasma theory of disease transmission.) However these changes in subject are never abrupt and the whole book feels like an organic whole. I also like how Johnson talks about history and the idea of the lone scientist working against the establishment, by explaining the social and scientific resources John Snow had that helped him see around miasma theroy and the key role that Henry Whitehead played in the board street pump investigation.
This was a very enjoyable and engaging book, all though not what I would call deep.
[*] The full title which won't fit in the subject line is: The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
The Ghost Map is not strictly a history, but touches on other topics as well, such as urbanism and why people believe wrong theories (such as the once popular miasma theory of disease transmission.) However these changes in subject are never abrupt and the whole book feels like an organic whole. I also like how Johnson talks about history and the idea of the lone scientist working against the establishment, by explaining the social and scientific resources John Snow had that helped him see around miasma theroy and the key role that Henry Whitehead played in the board street pump investigation.
This was a very enjoyable and engaging book, all though not what I would call deep.
[*] The full title which won't fit in the subject line is: The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
