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joanne_is_from_canada's review against another edition
4.0
This was a fascinating look at the 1918 Influenza pandemic, but I always seem to run into the same problem with science books. The well-received and highly rated ones are often older, and by the time I get around to reading them, I wish for a more current look at the same topic. I would love to read about outbreaks we've had since 1999 when this was written, like SARS (which I know is not influenza) and the 2009 H1N1 flu.
natemanfrenjensen's review against another edition
2.0
Such a badly written book about a horrible and fascinating pandemic. For a much better treatment of pandemics, especially emerging diseases, try The Coming Plague.
carrie562's review against another edition
3.0
I read this right after I read John Barry's The Great Influenza. They are very different books and I'm glad I read both. Barry's book is densely packed with information while this one is a bit lighter. But in terms of the subject matter, she spends a fair amount of time on various digressions, such as the 1976 flu vaccination effort and the discovery of the H5N1 avian flu. Barry's book comprehensively covers the period before and during the 1918 pandemic - a little too comprehensively, perhaps - while Gina Kolata's book does not really begin until 1950ish when the hunt for the virus takes off. Her style as always is easy to read and conversational, but sometimes I suspect she sacrifices accuracy for the sake of a simpler, more entertaining narrative. A good read, but I'm not going around recommending it.
tigersmurf's review against another edition
2.0
Too much fluff. I was expecting more history, more stories from the pandemic and more science. Not descriptions of various scientists physical looks or complete backstories. Not what I expected at all.
ncrabb's review against another edition
4.0
When the 24-hour news channels developed a morbid fascination with the Ebola virus last summer, I must admit, I did, too. Being an ardent believer in the premise that we best deal with an uncertain future if we better understand our past, I got to digging around and found this fascinating book.
Essentially, Kolata presents you with a highly readable account of the 1918 flu pandemic that killed millions of people worldwide, including millions of American young adults.
I read with horror about death tolls growing at such a rapid rate that people stopped attending funerals of their dead in large cities, piling bodies up outside in some cases for sanitation wagons to take away—and folks, this was in an American city, not some third-world place whose name we can barely pronounce.
If a plague of the same virility struck today, an estimated 1.5 million Americans would die. The flue killed more U.S. soldiers than did all of the battles of World War I. in which they participated.
If you enjoy a good mystery, you’ll like this book, since it focuses on the detective work necessary to find this disease. Indeed, this particular strain was located by scientists at a national military tissue storage facility and in a remote Alaskan cemetery inside the remains of a plus-sized Eskimo woman.
Kolata speculates on what could happen should an airborne killer disease strike again, and her perspective is sobering indeed.
If I have any criticism of this book, it is that it didn’t focus hard enough on the societal changes and impact of the 1918 flu. We had a killer on our hands, and we don’t really know where it started or why it mysteriously ended. Granted, we think that some kind of bird flu virus blended with a disease borne by pigs, and that deadly blend was carried to a human who spread what would become a killer that makes the bubonic plague rather inconsequential by comparison.
There is some science in here—you can’t have a book like this and not touch on the science of germ creation, cell penetration, etc., and of course, the stories of the competing scientists who wanted to find the virus are both interesting and unsettling.
Essentially, Kolata presents you with a highly readable account of the 1918 flu pandemic that killed millions of people worldwide, including millions of American young adults.
I read with horror about death tolls growing at such a rapid rate that people stopped attending funerals of their dead in large cities, piling bodies up outside in some cases for sanitation wagons to take away—and folks, this was in an American city, not some third-world place whose name we can barely pronounce.
If a plague of the same virility struck today, an estimated 1.5 million Americans would die. The flue killed more U.S. soldiers than did all of the battles of World War I. in which they participated.
If you enjoy a good mystery, you’ll like this book, since it focuses on the detective work necessary to find this disease. Indeed, this particular strain was located by scientists at a national military tissue storage facility and in a remote Alaskan cemetery inside the remains of a plus-sized Eskimo woman.
Kolata speculates on what could happen should an airborne killer disease strike again, and her perspective is sobering indeed.
If I have any criticism of this book, it is that it didn’t focus hard enough on the societal changes and impact of the 1918 flu. We had a killer on our hands, and we don’t really know where it started or why it mysteriously ended. Granted, we think that some kind of bird flu virus blended with a disease borne by pigs, and that deadly blend was carried to a human who spread what would become a killer that makes the bubonic plague rather inconsequential by comparison.
There is some science in here—you can’t have a book like this and not touch on the science of germ creation, cell penetration, etc., and of course, the stories of the competing scientists who wanted to find the virus are both interesting and unsettling.
rubyduby's review against another edition
4.0
Well, written page-turner about trying to discover the cause of the 1918 pandemic, a pandemic which was largely forgotten in the 20th century. Interesting characters, the research into the story is top-notch. Fascinating.
madfoot's review against another edition
3.0
Frustrating. The author seems to have just done research until the book was due, leaving so many questions unanswered at the end that I would have told her to sit on it till she could draw some conclusions.