On Pandemics
Deadly Diseases from Bubonic Plague to Coronavirus
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Narrated by:
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David Godfrey
About this listen
Containing important information about the coronavirus, this comprehensive, easy-to-follow primer on pandemics, epidemics, and the panics they ignite around the world also shares solutions for a safer, healthier future.
“A quiet little gem of understanding in a cacophony of panic and fear.” (Quill & Quire, starred review)
Authored by a leading epidemiologist, this engrossing book answers our questions about animal diseases that jump to humans - called zoonoses - including what attracts them to humans, why they have become more common in recent history, and how we can keep them at bay.
Almost all pandemics and epidemics have been caused by diseases that come to us from animals, including SARS, Ebola, and - now - Covid-19. Epidemiologist, veterinarian, and ecosystem health specialist, David Waltner-Toews, gathers the latest research to profile dozens of illnesses in On Pandemics. Chapters are broken into short, dynamic explainers, each one tackling a different disease. Listeners will discover:
- Why zoonotic diseases jump from animals to humans - and why some decide to stick around for good.
- How governments have responded to pandemics and epidemics throughout history, for better or for worse.
- The role of climate change, industrialized farming, cultural practices, biodiversity loss, and globalization in making these diseases not only possible, but inevitable outcomes of our modern lifestyles.
Coronaviruses, such as those that cause SARS and Covid-19, have likely made bats their home for centuries. Until SARS came along, we didn’t know they were there, nor do we know how many other death-dealing viruses might be living undetected in wildlife. On Pandemics shows the greater impact of animal-borne diseases on our world, and encourages us to reexamine our role in pandemics, if not for our own health, then for the health of our planet.
Published originally in 2007 as The Chickens Fight Back: Pandemic Panics and Deadly Diseases that Jump from Animals to Humans, this book has been updated in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Waltner-Toews makes truly entertaining reading.” (Globe and Mail)
“A page-turner presented with irreverent humour and many hair-raising anecdotes.” (Vitality Magazine)
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“[This book] asks us to examine the societal set-up that makes these diseases possible, including such inequities as overcrowded cities, poverty, slums, and a lack of clean water. A quiet little gem of understanding in a cacophony of panic and fear.” (Quill & Quire)
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Solid but not amazing account of malaria
- By S. Yates on 04-11-16
By: Sonia Shah
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The Pandemic Century
- One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris
- By: Mark Honigsbaum
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Pretty good
- By Baz 12345 on 04-03-20
By: Mark Honigsbaum
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An Epidemic of Absence
- A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases
- By: Moises Velasquez-Manoff
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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An Epidemic of Absence asks what will happen in developing countries, which, as they become more affluent, have already seen an uptick in allergic disease: Will India end up more allergic than Europe? Velasquez-Manoff also details a controversial underground movement that has coalesced around the treatment of immune-mediated disorders with parasites. Against much of his better judgment, he joins these do-it-yourselfers and reports his surprising results.
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The point of view from a Veterinarian immunologist
- By rtgymnast on 11-03-17
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Between Hope and Fear
- A History of Vaccines and Human Immunity
- By: Michael Kinch
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Between Hope and Fear tells the remarkable story of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases and their social and political implications. While detailing the history of vaccine invention, Michael Kinch reveals the ominous reality that our victories against vaccine-preventable diseases are not permanent - and could easily be undone. Between Hope and Fear relates the remarkable intersection of science, technology, and disease that has helped eradicate many of the deadliest plagues known to man.
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Enjoyed
- By Minsi Zhang on 05-03-20
By: Michael Kinch
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The Moth in the Iron Lung
- A Biography of Polio
- By: Forrest Maready
- Narrated by: Forrest Maready
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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A fascinating account of the world’s most famous disease - polio - told as you have never heard it before. Epidemics of paralysis began to rage in the early 1900s, seemingly out of nowhere. Doctors, parents, and health officials were at a loss to explain why this formerly unheard-of disease began paralyzing so many children. Why did this disease start to become such a horrible problem during the late 1800s? Why did it affect children more often than adults? Why was it originally called teething paralysis by mothers and their doctors?
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Root Cause
- By Circlekay1 Gulfport MS on 10-24-19
By: Forrest Maready
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Influenza
- The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic
- By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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On the 100th anniversary of the devastating pandemic of 1918, Jeremy Brown, a veteran ER doctor, explores the troubling, terrifying, and complex history of the flu virus, from the origins of the Great Flu that killed millions, to vexing questions such as: are we prepared for the next epidemic, should you get a flu shot, and how close are we to finding a cure?
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Important read
- By Kathryn C. on 12-21-18
By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
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This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
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Entertaining but questionable studies
- By mdkoci on 01-02-17
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Viruses, Plagues, and History
- Past, Present, and Future
- By: Michael B. A. Oldstone
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of viruses and humanity is a story of fear and ignorance, of grief and heartbreak, and of great bravery and sacrifice. Michael Oldstone tells all these stories as he illuminates the history of the devastating diseases that have tormented humanity, focusing mostly on the most famous viruses. For this revised edition, Oldstone includes discussions of new viruses like SARS, bird flu, virally caused cancers, chronic wasting disease, and West Nile. Viruses, Plagues, and History paints a sweeping portrait of humanity's long-standing conflict with our unseen viral enemies.
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very detailed, but very statistical
- By ekhensel15 on 01-12-19
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Pale Rider
- The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World
- By: Laura Spinney
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted - and often permanently altered - global politics, race relations, and family structures while spurring innovation in medicine, religion, and the arts.
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A Predilection for Those in the Prime of Life
- By Cynthia on 02-12-18
By: Laura Spinney
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The Family That Couldn't Sleep
- A Medical Mystery
- By: D.T. Max
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. What these strange conditions share is their cause: prions.
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A great scientific mystery
- By David on 11-04-06
By: D.T. Max
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Until Proven Safe
- The History and Future of Quarantine
- By: Nicola Twilley, Geoff Manaugh
- Narrated by: Kristen DiMercurio
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Quarantine is our most powerful response to uncertainty: it means waiting to see if something hidden inside us will be revealed. It is also one of our most dangerous, operating through an assumption of guilt. In quarantine, we are considered infectious until proven safe. Until Proven Safe tracks the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space - from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean, built to contain the Black Death, to an experimental Ebola unit in London, and from the hallways of the CDC.
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Excellent writing, timely and informative
- By MSE on 07-24-21
By: Nicola Twilley, and others
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A Short History of Humanity
- A New History of Old Europe
- By: Johannes Krause, Thomas Trappe, Caroline Waight - translator
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Johannes Krause is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and a brilliant pioneer in the field of archaeogenetics - archaeology augmented by DNA sequencing technology - which has allowed scientists to reconstruct human history reaching back hundreds of thousands of years before recorded time. In this surprising account, Krause and journalist Thomas Trappe rewrite a fascinating chapter of this history, the peopling of Europe, that takes us from the Neanderthals and Denisovans to the present.
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Not a short history of humanity
- By Brent on 05-02-21
By: Johannes Krause, and others
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COVID: The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science
- By: Marc Siegel MD
- Narrated by: Peter Van Norden
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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COVID-19 has stolen our security and our nation's peace of mind. There is a pandemic virus as well as a crippling epidemic of fear sweeping America. Why? The answer, according to nationally renowned health commentator Dr. Marc Siegel, is that we already lived in an artificially created culture of fear that was just waiting to be unleashed. In COVID: The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science, Siegel identifies three major catalysts of the culture of fear - government, the media, and our own psyche.
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Informative and well sourced
- By A. Powers on 10-12-21
By: Marc Siegel MD
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Evolving Ourselves
- How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth
- By: Juan Enriquez, Steve Gullans
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Why are conditions like autism, asthma, obesity, and allergies exploding at unprecedented rates? Why are we living longer, getting smarter, having far fewer kids? If Darwin were alive today, how would he explain this new world?
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fascinating ideas and science
- By Joel on 07-04-15
By: Juan Enriquez, and others