A review by bookwoman1967
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

2.0

The author claims that "this book is a historical narrative of the events of September 1854 in London based on the many surviving eyewitness accounts and the exhaustive investigations by the authorities in the months after the outbreak subsided." THAT book I would have liked to have read. However, this is not that book. Instead I would say it is a brief account the cholera outbreak and its aftermath, with way too much musing on the flow of ideas and the nature of cities. No, I do not need to read a thorough analysis of New York's 311 service, at least not here. And the way-too-long epilogue exploring the author's ideas of ways to destroy modern cities made me want to scream. What I would have liked to have seen instead would be more exploration of John Snow himself. I felt I got as much information on him from the wikipedia page as I did from this book. More exploration of his life would have been a book worth reading.