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rkaufman13's review against another edition
3.0
Yep, less than 12 hours after posting my "this book is sure getting tedious" comment, I picked it back up and realized I had no interest in continuing to the end. I skimmed it, so I'm counting it as "read" rather than unfinished, but the first 150 pages were definitely the best.
Meh.
Meh.
ralibbey13's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
What a fantastic book! Not only discussing the cholera epidemic but how it’s impacted modern day healthcare and society. Amazing.
hb_bookworm's review against another edition
4.0
if you're coming to this looking to learn the story of the broad street cholera outbreak, the author does a great job of bringing the players and the setting to life. however, he also spends a lot of time contextualizing the event from early civilization to modern day -- fascinating, but somewhat long winded. I really like learning that kind of history and seeing how one event fits into all of history, but even I thought he got a bit redundant at times. overall, a great piece of historical/modern writing.
emilyb_chicago's review against another edition
4.0
I have a hard time finishing non fiction books. I find that the author repeats themselves and as the book progresses the arguments become weaker. This book is one I'm very happy to have finished. While the first few chapters do give you a complete overview of the material the book will cover, the details in the later half of the book are fascinating.
The best thing this book does is give a vivid picture of the world in 1850s. Its so easy to forget the sordid details when we read the current best selling novels set in Victorian England and see the lovely costumes designed for the summer blockbusters.
If you love any book set in the mid/late 1800s, you should definitely read the first few chapters of this book. If you're interested in science and how disease was discussed and dealt with you should read the whole book. Of course, if you're interested in Cholera specifically you should definitely read the book.
The best thing this book does is give a vivid picture of the world in 1850s. Its so easy to forget the sordid details when we read the current best selling novels set in Victorian England and see the lovely costumes designed for the summer blockbusters.
If you love any book set in the mid/late 1800s, you should definitely read the first few chapters of this book. If you're interested in science and how disease was discussed and dealt with you should read the whole book. Of course, if you're interested in Cholera specifically you should definitely read the book.
logan08's review against another edition
5.0
This book was really engaging, which made the denser parts very easy to read. It was truly telling the story of the spread of cholera and what people were trying to do to stop it, rather than provide just an analysis. I enjoy when non-fiction books have both a storytelling element as well as an analysis element.
msmiller's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed this book a lot. As someone who loves history, this book did an excellent job of telling the story of the cholera epidemic in the 1850s, specifically in the broad street and surrounding region. The epilogue was really quite eerie as he was describing an eventual pandemic to come in 2006 and now we are currently living in one in 2022. Overall a great read even though the author was a little all over the place at times.