Overview

Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From the Spanish flu to the 1924 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles to the 1930 parrot fever pandemic, through the more recent SARS, Ebola, and Zika epidemics, the last one hundred years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated pandemic alarms. In The Pandemic Century, a lively account of scares both infamous and less known, Mark Honigsbaum combines reportage with the history of science and medical sociology to artfully reconstruct epidemiological mysteries and the ecology of infectious diseases. We meet dedicated disease detectives, obstructive or incompetent public health officials, and brilliant scientists often blinded by their own knowledge of bacteria and viruses. Like man-eating sharks, predatory pathogens are always present in nature, waiting to strike; when one is seemingly vanquished, others appear in its place. These pandemics remind us of the limits of scientific knowledge, as well as the role that human behavior and technologies play in the emergence and spread of microbial diseases.

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9781665127110

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Reviews

[A] riveting, vivid history of modern disease outbreaks....A fascinating account of a deeply important topic for if the past 100 years have taught us anything, it is that new diseases and viral strains will inevitably beset us, no matter how sophisticated science becomes. -- The Observer (London) A lively but less than reassuring read for those on exotic travels. -- Financial Times (London) Engrossing....Combining history, popular science, and policy, [Honigsbaum] describes each pandemic with journalistic immediacy....An important and timely work. -- Booklist (starred review) Gripping. -- Nature Lively, gruesome, and masterful....Honigsbaum mixes superb medical history with vivid portraits of the worldwide reactions to each [pandemic] event. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Some scenes in this deeply researched history, citing similarities in the world's response to nine so-called pandemics, are so vivid they had our reviewer, Carl Zimmer, drafting movie treatments in his head. The paperback edition includes a new chapter on the coronavirus. -- New York Times Book Review

Author Information

Mark Honigsbaum is a medical historian, journalist, and the author of five books, including The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris and The Fever Trail: In Search of the Cure for Malaria. He is a lecturer at City University, London. John Lee, a charming mixture of college professor and therapist, came to national prominence over a decade ago with The Flying Boy: Healing the Wounded Man, which sold more than a quarter million copies. He has since written eight other books on anger, fathers and sons, mothers and sons, and other relationships, including Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately and Growing Yourself Back Up: Understanding Emotional Regression. Bestselling author John Lee has been featured on Oprah, 20/20, The View, CNN, PBS, and NPR. He has been interviewed by Newsweek, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and dozens of other national magazines and radio talk shows.

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