Pandemics
A Very Short Introduction
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Narrated by:
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Joe Barrett
About this listen
Christian W. McMillen provides a concise yet comprehensive account of pandemics throughout human history, illustrating how pandemic disease has shaped history and, at the same time, social behavior has influenced pandemic disease.
This Very Short Introduction describes history's major pandemics-plague, tuberculosis, malaria, smallpox, cholera, influenza, and HIV/AIDS-highlighting how each disease's biological characteristics affected its pandemic development. McMillen discusses state responses to pandemics, such as quarantine, isolation, travel restrictions, and other forms of social control, and pays special attention to the rise of public health and the explosion of medical research in the wake of pandemics, especially as the germ theory of disease emerged in the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries. Today, medicine is able to control all of these diseases, yet some of them are still devastating in much of the developing world. By assessing the relationship between poverty and disease and the geography of epidemics, McMillen offers an outspoken and thought-provoking point of view on the necessity for global governments to learn from past experiences and proactively cooperate to prevent any future epidemic.
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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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The Great Escape
- Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality
- By: Angus Deaton
- Narrated by: Matthew Brenher
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations. In The Great Escape, Angus Deaton - one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty - tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today's disproportionately unequal world.
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not worth listening
- By Kyung on 04-26-20
By: Angus Deaton
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Pandora's Seed
- The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization
- By: Spencer Wells
- Narrated by: Spencer Wells
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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This new book by Spencer Wells, the internationally known geneticist, anthropologist, author, and director of the Genographic Project, focuses on the seminal event in human history: mankind's decision to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.
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Short and unfocused, but often quite interesting.
- By Alan on 06-23-10
By: Spencer Wells
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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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The Fever
- Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
- By: Sonia Shah
- Narrated by: Maha Chehlaoui
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their names - and opened their pocketbooks - in hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren’t we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we’ve known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?
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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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Age of Discovery
- Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance
- By: Ian Goldin, Chris Kutarna
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Age of Discovery explores a world on the brink of a new Renaissance and asks: how do we share more widely the benefits of unprecedented progress? How do we endure the inevitable tumult generated by accelerating change? How do we each thrive through this tangled, uncertain time? From gains in health, education, wealth and technology to crises of conflict, disease and mass migration, the similarities between today's world and that of the 15th century are both striking and prophetic: we have been here before.
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A monotonous text disguised as casual reading.
- By Rob on 07-29-16
By: Ian Goldin, and others
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The Mosquito
- A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator
- By: Timothy C. Winegard
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Why was gin and tonic the cocktail of choice for British colonists in India and Africa? What does Starbucks have to thank for its global domination? What has protected the lives of popes for millennia? Why did Scotland surrender its sovereignty to England? What was George Washington's secret weapon during the American Revolution? The answer to all these questions, and many more, is the mosquito. Driven by surprising insights and fast-paced storytelling, The Mosquito is the extraordinary untold story of the mosquito’s reign through human history.
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Major Disappointment
- By Amazon Customer on 09-02-19
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The Fate of Rome
- Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire
- By: Kyle Harper
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes listeners from Rome's pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted.
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Interesting and worthwhile
- By B. Coleman on 06-15-19
By: Kyle Harper
What listeners say about Pandemics
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- ValueMinded
- 10-10-23
Compact and informative
The actor, Joe Barrett, who read the book did an excellent job, and each chapter had a tremendous amount of information in a very small space. The authors hit the most important points and unique aspects of each pandemic were highlighted, and compared to other pandemics discussed in the book.
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