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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
This book had promise, and is good in spots - but the overall product suffers greatly from lack of direction and editorial control. If I could rate the best third of the book, I would give it five stars. The other two thirds of the book suffers substantially from a lack of focus, inclusion of unnecessary information, and overly dramatic narrative. And, to add insult to injury, the footnotes are handled in such a fashion that they become nearly useless.
In the afterword, it becomes quite obvious that the author made a bad assumption at the start of his endeavor. After spending seven years researching the book, he concluded that he could not tell the story of the epidemic without covering the history medical science leading up until that time. He also wanted to write the book from the perspective of the scientists and politicians who reacted to the influenza outbreak; he seemed more interested in covering their actions than the virus itself.
These assumptions are incorrect. The most interesting and relevant portion of the book is the history of the virus itself. If Barry had simply explained how the virus worked, how it may have come into being, and then followed each wave of the epidemic in chronological order, this book would have been much more enjoyable and much shorter. Instead, he covers material which is not relevant - and by focusing on this material he breaks up his coverage of the virus, thereby rendering the best part of the book less enjoyable.
The first third of the book is dedicated to the history of modern medical science. Some of the material is of interest, but this history is not necessary for any discussion of the influenza virus. It has absolutely no impact on the remainder of the book. The reader could simply skip the first 30% of the book and would not notice it. I actually found this information to be interesting, that that does not warrant their inclusion in a 450 page book with a supposed focus on the 1918 epidemic.
The second portion of the book is the most direct discussion of the virus in the book, and it is quite good. Barry provides a brief explanation of how the virus works and why it is so successful. He then discusses the impact of the disease, rivaling any horror story while doing so. The amount of chaos and suffering caused by the outbreak is quite sobering.
During this time, Barry also discusses the prevailing political climate. As this outbreak occurred during WWI. President Wilson's desire to turn the entire country into a weapon required news of the virus to be controlled rather tightly. This was exacerbated by a good deal of corruption at lower levels of government. The result was a climate in which misinformation and inaction killed tens of thousands of Americans. This material is entirely relevant, and I actually might have liked for him to focus more on it.
The last portion of the book covers the scientific community's attempts to control the virus. This is really a misguided effort, as there is no significant discovery to work towards. While the scientists Barry introduces the reader to are all very accomplished, none of them are able to make any headway with their influenza work. The book becomes a spastic collection of various experiments carried out by a handful of scientists. The text is hard to follow as it is all over the map, and after you finish it you realized that the last third of the book is about as relevant as the first third, only less interesting. It is almost comical; one of the scientists he covers during the entire book is Paul Lewis. Towards the end of the book, after discussing Paul Lewis' troubled family life ad nauseam, and filling the reader in on all sorts of work Lewis did with tuberculosis (which had no impact on any influenza research), Barry goes on to tell us how Lewis died while working with the yellow fever in Brazil. So essentially, any mention of Paul Lewis in the book was completely superfluous.
In the afterword, it becomes quite obvious that the author made a bad assumption at the start of his endeavor. After spending seven years researching the book, he concluded that he could not tell the story of the epidemic without covering the history medical science leading up until that time. He also wanted to write the book from the perspective of the scientists and politicians who reacted to the influenza outbreak; he seemed more interested in covering their actions than the virus itself.
These assumptions are incorrect. The most interesting and relevant portion of the book is the history of the virus itself. If Barry had simply explained how the virus worked, how it may have come into being, and then followed each wave of the epidemic in chronological order, this book would have been much more enjoyable and much shorter. Instead, he covers material which is not relevant - and by focusing on this material he breaks up his coverage of the virus, thereby rendering the best part of the book less enjoyable.
The first third of the book is dedicated to the history of modern medical science. Some of the material is of interest, but this history is not necessary for any discussion of the influenza virus. It has absolutely no impact on the remainder of the book. The reader could simply skip the first 30% of the book and would not notice it. I actually found this information to be interesting, that that does not warrant their inclusion in a 450 page book with a supposed focus on the 1918 epidemic.
The second portion of the book is the most direct discussion of the virus in the book, and it is quite good. Barry provides a brief explanation of how the virus works and why it is so successful. He then discusses the impact of the disease, rivaling any horror story while doing so. The amount of chaos and suffering caused by the outbreak is quite sobering.
During this time, Barry also discusses the prevailing political climate. As this outbreak occurred during WWI. President Wilson's desire to turn the entire country into a weapon required news of the virus to be controlled rather tightly. This was exacerbated by a good deal of corruption at lower levels of government. The result was a climate in which misinformation and inaction killed tens of thousands of Americans. This material is entirely relevant, and I actually might have liked for him to focus more on it.
The last portion of the book covers the scientific community's attempts to control the virus. This is really a misguided effort, as there is no significant discovery to work towards. While the scientists Barry introduces the reader to are all very accomplished, none of them are able to make any headway with their influenza work. The book becomes a spastic collection of various experiments carried out by a handful of scientists. The text is hard to follow as it is all over the map, and after you finish it you realized that the last third of the book is about as relevant as the first third, only less interesting. It is almost comical; one of the scientists he covers during the entire book is Paul Lewis. Towards the end of the book, after discussing Paul Lewis' troubled family life ad nauseam, and filling the reader in on all sorts of work Lewis did with tuberculosis (which had no impact on any influenza research), Barry goes on to tell us how Lewis died while working with the yellow fever in Brazil. So essentially, any mention of Paul Lewis in the book was completely superfluous.
2.5*
This book has been on my radar for quite a long time, it wasn't just current events that have whetted my interest. It has been rather disappointing.
There was a lot of material about the beginning of the American medical establishment that seemed extraneous--the message could have been conveyed in 20 pages rather than 80. And many of the numerous physicians and scientists who would end up looking for the source/treatments/cure of the infection were introduced early and then not seen again until much later in the book... I was not willing to go back and remind myself who was who and, as usual, these men mostly became conflated with one another in my mind. (I was able to keep track of the two women.) Possibly it is a failing of my own but I suspect a lot of other people have trouble keeping track of such a (necessarily) large cast of characters. Those are higher order issues, executive decisions in structuring the book and perhaps it would be fair for the author to say that it isn't his fault that I wanted to read a different story than the one he was trying to tell. (He didn't manage to sell me on his story, though.)
The ordinary writing and editing left a lot to be desired. There were a lot of unclear sentences that could have been improved with minor tweaks. More unsettling, some of the factual material was not right, the most egregious example of which was the author's reiteration of the common misconception that deoxygenated blood is blue. It is a very dark red and may appear bluish when viewed through the skin. Surely the author has had blood drawn? (And if not, how did the physicians who reviewed the manuscript miss this obvious error?) I was able to identify some other misrepresentations here and there but it is the non-obvious stuff that I didn't catch that concerns me about the book.
This history of the 1918 flu pandemic was also far too US-centric. Although most of the world became so overwhelmed with war and pestilence that records are understandably incomlete, I am willing to bet cash money there was a fair amount of information recorded by Germans in both the scientific and military communities. Reading about the spread of the virus through Europe (even though--or perhaps especially because--it was full of war at the time) would be of interest, regardless of how spotty the information might have been. But at least for the US, this history seemed thorough.
As always, I want more visualizations in this sciencey history book--timelines, graphs of casualty rates among different ages/locations/dates/etc, maps--in addition to the photographs. So much easier placing events in time and space if there is a timeline to go along with the words.
This story has a lot of familiar elements. It is depressing how little people have learned.
This book has been on my radar for quite a long time, it wasn't just current events that have whetted my interest. It has been rather disappointing.
There was a lot of material about the beginning of the American medical establishment that seemed extraneous--the message could have been conveyed in 20 pages rather than 80. And many of the numerous physicians and scientists who would end up looking for the source/treatments/cure of the infection were introduced early and then not seen again until much later in the book... I was not willing to go back and remind myself who was who and, as usual, these men mostly became conflated with one another in my mind. (I was able to keep track of the two women.) Possibly it is a failing of my own but I suspect a lot of other people have trouble keeping track of such a (necessarily) large cast of characters. Those are higher order issues, executive decisions in structuring the book and perhaps it would be fair for the author to say that it isn't his fault that I wanted to read a different story than the one he was trying to tell. (He didn't manage to sell me on his story, though.)
The ordinary writing and editing left a lot to be desired. There were a lot of unclear sentences that could have been improved with minor tweaks. More unsettling, some of the factual material was not right, the most egregious example of which was the author's reiteration of the common misconception that deoxygenated blood is blue. It is a very dark red and may appear bluish when viewed through the skin. Surely the author has had blood drawn? (And if not, how did the physicians who reviewed the manuscript miss this obvious error?) I was able to identify some other misrepresentations here and there but it is the non-obvious stuff that I didn't catch that concerns me about the book.
This history of the 1918 flu pandemic was also far too US-centric. Although most of the world became so overwhelmed with war and pestilence that records are understandably incomlete, I am willing to bet cash money there was a fair amount of information recorded by Germans in both the scientific and military communities. Reading about the spread of the virus through Europe (even though--or perhaps especially because--it was full of war at the time) would be of interest, regardless of how spotty the information might have been. But at least for the US, this history seemed thorough.
As always, I want more visualizations in this sciencey history book--timelines, graphs of casualty rates among different ages/locations/dates/etc, maps--in addition to the photographs. So much easier placing events in time and space if there is a timeline to go along with the words.
This story has a lot of familiar elements. It is depressing how little people have learned.
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
I have listened to four hours of book and we are just beginning to approach talking about the flu. I need to stop sunk-costing this book.
Woof!! This guy lost me 20 minutes in discussing the multi wars being waged at the time when he says, “One involved expansion and race. In the Dakotas, George Custer had just lead the 7th cavalry to its destruction at the hands of primitive savages...” Ummm excuse me?? Primitive savages! What is this, 1845?! This has white male privilege written all over it! If he was sticking to history just as it was written, this MIGHT be one thing, but he adds his own weird and terribly written drama at every turn. Yuck. I wasted two hours on this book and I will waste no more!
“The clock is ticking, we just don’t know what time it is.”
This is the best pandemic book I have read. It really fills in the blanks on the books I’ve read about Woodrow Wilson that have completely omitted the pandemic. The fact that Wilson’s illness has been listed as a “stroke” throughout history is just astounding.
The numbers in this book are completely horrific and yet I was riveted to each statistic I read.
This book was published in 2005. It’s clear we learned nothing on how to handle a pandemic such as Covid from the past…history repeats itself.
This is the best pandemic book I have read. It really fills in the blanks on the books I’ve read about Woodrow Wilson that have completely omitted the pandemic. The fact that Wilson’s illness has been listed as a “stroke” throughout history is just astounding.
The numbers in this book are completely horrific and yet I was riveted to each statistic I read.
This book was published in 2005. It’s clear we learned nothing on how to handle a pandemic such as Covid from the past…history repeats itself.
Interesting back stories that you don't expect to be reading about, like how the gov't. was so focused on WWI that it wasn't helpful to its own people during the epidemic. And how newspapers were encouraged to lie about the dangers of the epidemic. A bit too much detail about the some of the people but I liked reading about the scientists.
challenging
informative
sad
slow-paced
This account of the global influenza pandemic that ravaged the world during WWI contains elements that are all too familiar after the COVID pandemic. The author focuses on the personalities of the scientists who raced to find the source of the disease while it took the lives of young people and soldiers in horrifying numbers. This book came out 20 years ago but it is definitely still worth reading today, as bird flu continues to jump from host to host, increasing the risk of a dangerous mutation.
This book was so interesting! It went into detail about the history of medicine and medical research in the US which was neat. It gave me a good background on how pandemics work (which both made me feel better and concerned me, tbh). I highly recommend it!
Fascinating level of detail that is spot-on for COVID reading. I wish the folks at the White House would read this before the second wave hits.