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

The springboard for Steven Johnson's book, The Ghost Map, is the 1854 London cholera epidemic, but the pool that he dives into from this jumping off point is both deep and broad.The cholera epidemic of 1854 is fascinating in and of itself, and many aficionados of medical history will recall that it was the setting of one of the most dramatic moments in public health history: an epidemic was brought to a halt by the simple removal of the pump handle on the Broad Street well that supplied the stricken London neighborhood. The ferocity of an epidemic that swept entire families away in two or three days is presented in horrifying detail, but this book is far more fascinating than just another plague story. Johnson's credentials in science writing are solid and impressive, having written for Wired, Slate, and Discover Magazine, as well as having published several books. In Ghost Map, he flexes his literary muscle with potent effect. Johnson's mind is a "big tent" mind, and The Ghost Map is a three ring circus of intellectual ferment, with the final product being far more thought-provoking and informative than a "bug versus human, human conquers bug" tale.Johnson is a fan of scalable levels of knowing, and is never satisfied with a simple listing of dates, times, and names. Think rather this way: bacteria (such as the vibrio cholerae) evolved early on. More complex unicellular organisms came later, but actually incorporated bacteria inside their cell membranes to provide certain functions (such as mitochondria). These more complex cellular organisms became multi-cellular. Multi-cellular organisms eventually (in the plant and animal world) developed organs. Humans eventually came on the scene, composed of cells, organs, neuro and hormonal networks, and consciousness. Humans began to live together, forming simple gatherings, then hamlets, villages, towns, cities, and mega-cities. As cities and mega-cities evolved, their function clearly demonstrated yet another scaled up level of organization: cities/mega-cities began to function like organisms...or maybe ARE organisms. Cities combine into states/nations, and up the scale we go to the Margulis/Lovelock Gaia concept, and even beyond. All to say that starting with the tiny little organism that causes fatal illness in the untreated victim, vibrio cholerae, Johnson takes the reader on eye-popping, cerebrum stretching exploration of where we humans have been, and where we might be going. The author never lets the reader forget the overlapping and interweaving levels of effects and influences that all the above organisms and quasi-organisms have upon one another. Two million people inhabited London in 1854, with population densities sometimes exceeding 400 people per acre. States Johnson "that perplexity gave rise to an intuitive sense that the city itself was best understood as a creature with its own distinct form of volition, greater than the sum of its parts, a monster, a diseased body."The title, The Ghost Map, is a prelude to Johnson's fascination with the ability of maps to organize knowledge into ever more comprehensible patterns, patterns that vastly supersede in sophistication and utility the simple specification of geographic location. Johnson's discussion of this topic alone would have satisfied me that I got my money's worth out of this excellent book, but the importance of maps is only one topic among many that would have made me feel equally satisfied. Dive into this pool of ideas ready to have more than a few take-your-breath-away moments.

I'm currently getting my masters in public health and have been so interested in epidemiology. This book is a great start to learning the origins of germ theory!

I love historical stories that manage to find themselves in a network of tangents that always interconnect to each other, and this book is the best one I have found for that. I originally bought the book because I am a map maker and wanted to know more about the famous Cholera Map that is also considered the first use of GIS analysis. I instead got a ridiculously wonderful ride learning about so many topics that by the time I was finished, I felt like I had learned so much more than just about the map that was created. The author is witty and has a lot of passion for what he is talking about and it shows in his book. It was easy to read (unless you are queasy around death... then it may not be super easy to read, a lot of people die) and I enjoyed every chapter to the degree that I had to fill everyone in around me with what was going on in the book as I was going along. This is probably one of the top recommended books I ever have for people who are curious about just learning anything and everything about how the world works and is connected in the strangest ways.

It seems like I am not alone in these sentiments, at least among the critical reviewers of this book. Much of the Conclusion, and certainly all the Epilogue is such a non-sequester in style, content, but primarily in the quality of thought from what preceded it. The last 50 pages seem like a rambling "cut and paste" add-on.Johnson is a polymath in his own right, and has mastered the diverse aspects of the outbreak of cholera in the Soho section of London, in 1954, and has written a compelling story. It is the London of the time of Charles Dickens, whom Johnson has read and routinely quotes. His descriptions of the significant part of the population that dealt in "recycling" and human wastes (and these people would have formed one of the larger cities in England at the time) were most memorable; Dickeneque in their own right. He provides an excellent clinical description of the action of cholera on the human body. The "drama" of the story centers around the action of two very different men, the scientist Dr. John Snow, and the social worker pastor Henry Whitehead, who combined their different outlooks and skills, to prove that the vector that carried cholera was water; which was totally contradictory to the received ideas of the time. Establishment thought considered it to be the "miasma," the fetid air, the bad smells that transmitted the disease. Johnson gives an impressive biological explanation why human reactions to smells would cloud their judgment; much contradictory evidence, such as the fact that the laborers who worked in the fetid atmosphere of the sewers all day were not particularly susceptible to the disease, was simply ignored. Johnson laces his account with some droll humor, for example, praising the advantage of cities so that it gave consumers an opportunity to concern themselves with "new technologies.... and celebrity gossip"(!) Considerable emphasis is given to the impact of "the Ghost Map," which is a graphical representation of where the deaths occurred, and how this helped "sell" the theory that the water from the one well, at 40 Broad Street, which had been contaminated with cholera from the diapers of Victim #1, or as they say in epidemiology, the "index case," was the source of the disease. And yes, despite some reviewer comments, the Ghost Map is in the book, in several places, even with a "ghost" shading.But even with the first 200 pages I had some problems. The gas/liquid/solid energy metaphor of the three states of water compared to the three developmental states of human society: hunter-gather/farmer/city dweller is completely muddled, and the energy levels are actually the reverse of what is indicated (p 94). The Ghost Map was in the book, but it certainly would have been useful to have a Voronoi diagram also. And when he cites Marcel Proust and his Madeleine-inspired reveries (p 128) he missed a marvelous opportunity to compare Dr. Snow's work with Marcel's father, Dr. Achille Adrien Proust, who was an epidemiologist who devoted much of his life to fighting cholera, and is largely responsible for developing the "cordon sanitaire" technique. There is also the problem, particularly prominent at the publisher, Penguin, ( Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival  fame) of not taking the time to run the manuscript through spell-check. The editing, particularly towards the end was shoddy - saying the same thing about the 1918 flu epidemic, thrice, in three pages. Despite these shortcomings, I would have given the book 5-stars if he had stopped around page 200.The last 50 pages should have been prefaced with that classic cover from the "New Yorker," that shows the world in wildly distorted proportion, with Manhattan consuming about 80% of it, Jersey as a distant shore, San Francisco a remote dot, and all of China a smaller and more remote one still. Johnson is an unabashed New Yorker, (and yes, as the cliché has it, it is a great place to visit, but...) and he apparently believes that the world would be a better place if we all lived like they do in the Big Apple. "We are now, as a species, dependent on dense urban living as a survival strategy" (p 236). Pleeeze. Some of us in the "fly-over zone" would demur. Johnson asserts with the aplomb and certainty of Edwin Chadwick, one of the chief miasmaists who propounded the "All Smell is Disease" dogma.As a few other reviewers have commented, it is rather ironic that there are large dollops of miasma-theory supporter thought processes behind Johnson's statements made in the final pages. All the contradictory evidence is set aside when "I (heart) NYC." Is New York really the greenest city in the United States, aside from an article in - no surprise here- "The New Yorker"? Density as an engine of wealth creation? How many trillion did Wall Street just vaporize? Density leads to population reduction? Or is it increased income levels that makes the "human" Social Security of many children no longer necessary? And then the long ramble about terrorist threats was sophomoric, at best, with nary a thought as to how to reduce or eliminate these threats. It is not that terrorism, fossil fuel depletion, or the threat of a new epidemic are not real issues to be considered in rationale discourse, but how could you NOT mention America's, and even New York's massive reliance on foreign capital, and foreigners to supply us the necessities of life, while so many able Americans are unemployed as being the central issue that must be resolved: an equitable distribution of the wealth of society. I just finished reading Thoreau's  Walden , and what a stunning contrast.Overall, the last section should be dropped, or re-worked, with much more critical thought, including some input from beyond the Hudson River, and perhaps made into its own stand-alone book. Combining the excellent portions of the book, with a shoddy ending: 3-stars.

Fora de série. Utilizei muitas informações num livro que escreví(Doenças que mudaram a História).

This book was a fascinating look at the tragedies that led to the modernization of sewage treatment in London. I thoroughly enjoyed the read, but was blown away at the senseless deaths. It was a very interesting look at the intersection between historical health science and city planning.

Excelente perspectiva histórico-científica del Londres del siglo XIX... Es recorrer Londres en su época de consolidación como la ciudad esplendor de un imperio en apogeo...

Étude tout simplement brillante. L'auteur nous offre une plongée passionnante dans la quête du docteur Snow pour comprendre les modalités de diffusion du choléra ainsi que tous ses efforts, accompagné du révérend Whitehead, pour convaincre les différents (et nombreux) acteurs politiques locaux du bien-fondé de sa théorie. Enfin, ce livre est aussi l'occasion de voir naître la première carte géographique s'appuyant sur le big-data.

Such a stroke of genius to plot death on a map and recognized patterns that indicated the source of disease.While others were convinced the disease was carried in the air, Snow recognised it to be water born... Super story