Synopsis
Through personal stories, modern research, and harrowing medical descriptions, a science writer chronicles the widespread devastation of the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918, a plague that killed 40 million people worldwide. Addressing both the layperson and scientists, the author claims that learning about the causes of this epidemic is the only way to prepare for and prevent future outbreaks of such magnitude. A New York Times Notable Book for 1999.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2001-01-09 |
| Size | | Length: | 330 pages | | Height: | 8.4 in | | Width: | 5.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 12.0 oz |
Publisher's Note
An acclaimed science reporter for The New York Times describes the great flu epidemic of 1918, an outbreak that killed some forty million people worldwide, and discusses the efforts of scientists and public health officials to understand and prevent another lethal pandemic.
Industry Reviews
"Allowing for a bit of enthusiastic exaggeration, the book delivers everything [Kolata] promises. Artfully (indeed archly) constructed as a detective story, it tells how heroes and heroines of science, working in obscurity and on their own, encountered not wicked but pompous, misguided, or perhaps merely jealous scientific colleagues, and prevailed in the end....She presents...a case of life imitating art, or rather of life presented so artfully as to command admiration and wonder from anyone who reads it."
McNeill
"Kolata writes a medical detective story that is rich in scientific detail yet accessible to lay readers....The most dramatic phase of flu research began in the 1950s with the quest for a 1918-flu virus specimen, and Kolata captures the character and flavor of these personality-driven adventures."
Reisner
"So here we have one of history's great mysteries--the nature of the flu and its causative agen--wrapped in one tantalizing cultural enigma: Why is this relatively recent scourge so dimly remembered? Kolata does a useful service in recalling it to our attention, despite the frustration that she can't tell us more. Given the current state of knowledge, though, that's hardly her fault."
Washington Post - Beryl Lieff Benderly (01/11/2000)
"The most gripping sections of Kolata's book describe the stops and starts as the molecular scientists at the Armed Forces Institute homed in on the 1918 virus....As well as its intrinsic excitement, Kolata's narrative offers a number of insights into the workings of science."
New York Times Book Review - David Papineau (11/21/1999)
"The New York Times reporter Gina Kolata...is among the better science writers....Turning now to the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was 25 times more deadly than ordinary influenza, Kolata has found an apt subject for her skills as microbiologist, journalist and agitator....[She] is effective at reporting [research] expeditions, which have built-in excitement. But she is also adept at vivifying the history of plagues and untangling their dark biology."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - Floyd Skloot (12/12/1999)
"Kolata's medical detective story is packed with new information and astonishments....She has produced not only a chilling read but also a book that, like Paul de Kruif's classic MICROBE HUNTERS, could jump start a new generation of medical researchers."
Time - R. Z. Sheppard (12/13/1999)
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