Reviews

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

batsalad's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring medium-paced

4.5

This book was written pre-pandemic. It lends a sort of poignancy to it. 

beebeetlebee's review against another edition

informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

marieintheraw's review against another edition

4.0

December 2017: By focusing on the event as a story unfolding, Steven Johnson gives it the suspense necessary to keep the reader entertained, while being focused on the points he gave; however, he did repeat points several times. The repetition of his points could have been done deliberately to get his points across or, more likely, in an attempt to validate them.

November 2017: Initial read for my paper. Will probably be reading again within the week.

shareen17's review against another edition

4.0

Basically, this book is about how two men came together in Victorian London to answer the question of how cholera is spread. That by itself is pretty interesting, considering they were working with very little information, and were putting in a crazy amount of work just for the sake of knowledge and helping others -no one was paying them. What the author really does well though is bring together information from numerous fields to explain the time and place in a coherent and compelling way, and relate their work to problems faced today. With in-depth descriptions of both cholera and the sewage systems of Victorian London, this book is not for those with weak stomachs.

highmarshal_azure's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective

5.0

tophat8855's review against another edition

5.0

My kids knew more about Dr. John Snow than I did, so it was time to read this. We really are indebted to the people who pioneered pathology and public health. Written in 2006, at the end Johnson says something like "The virus that will affect us on an international scale hasn't been created yet." And he was not wrong. Listened via Hoopla (which is why I don't have the exact sentence!)

sheranel's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

Would have given a higher rating if not for the conclusion and epilogue.

booksnooksandcooks's review against another edition

2.0

If this book deleted the entire last chapter, I would give it more stars. But Johnson takes mediocre research strewn together in a hindsight-laden view of cholera epidemics and delves into some conspiracy-laced rant about 9/11, nuclear weapons, etc.

Guess what, man!!! A pandemic actually happened!!! And yeah, it was horrible in cities!!! But it wasn’t whatever that last chapter was. I spent the entire epilogue staring at the wall in a mixture of confusion and boredom as the audiobook artist continued on. 

The two stars this book DOES get is because it actually kept me interested in the history of cholera and sanitation systems. That’s the only redeeming point.

mkmcd's review against another edition

informative reflective

2.5

Interesting history. Strange to look back on some of the authors hypotheses after the COVID-19 pandemic happened. 

11rose25's review against another edition

dark informative slow-paced

2.0