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The Pandemic Century
- One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
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Publisher's summary
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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By: Alan Sipress
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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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Beating Back the Devil
- By: Maryn McKenna
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The universal instinct is to run from an outbreak of disease. These doctors run toward it. They always keep a bag packed. They seldom have more than 24 hours before they are dispatched. They are told only their country of destination and the epidemic they will tackle when they get there.
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Interesting Stuff - Only criticism is pacing
- By Tim on 07-23-05
By: Maryn McKenna
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Pandemic
- Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
- By: Sonia Shah
- Narrated by: Sonia Shah
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Interweaving history, original reportage, and personal narrative, Pandemic explores the origin of epidemics, drawing parallels between the story of cholera - one of history's most disruptive and deadly pathogens - and the new pathogens that stalk humankind today, from Ebola and avian influenza to drug-resistant superbugs.
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You will probably enjoy "Spillover" more
- By serine on 03-01-16
By: Sonia Shah
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Seven Modern Plagues
- And How We Are Causing Them
- By: Mark Jerome Walter
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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According to veterinarian and journalist Mark Walters, we are contributing to - if not overtly causing - some of the scariest epidemics of our time. Through human stories and cutting-edge science, Walters explores the origins of seven diseases: Mad Cow Disease, HIV/AIDS, Salmonella DT104, Lyme Disease, Hantavirus, West Nile, and new strains of flu. He shows that they originate from manipulation of the environment, from emitting carbon and clear-cutting forests to feeding naturally herbivorous cows “recycled animal protein.”
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Frightening, truthful and a real eye opener
- By RobJD on 02-23-15
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The Demon Under The Microscope
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic medication. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
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Great Book!!!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
By: Thomas Hager
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The Remedy
- Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis
- By: Thomas Goetz
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1875, tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in the world, accountable for a third of all deaths. A diagnosis of TB - often called consumption - was a death sentence. Then, in a triumph of medical science, a German doctor named Robert Koch deployed an unprecedented scientific rigor to discover the bacteria that caused TB. Koch soon embarked on a remedy - a remedy that would be his undoing. When Koch announced his cure for consumption, Arthur Conan Doyle, then a small-town doctor in England and sometime writer, went to Berlin to cover the event.
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thought-provoking
- By Jean on 07-06-14
By: Thomas Goetz
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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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Polio
- An American Story
- By: David M. Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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This comprehensive and gripping narrative, which received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history, covers all the challenges, characters, and controversies in America's relentless struggle against polio. Funded by philanthropy and grassroots contributions, Salk's killed-virus vaccine (1954) and Sabin's live-virus vaccine (1961) began to eradicate this dreaded disease.
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-22-08
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Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses
- From the Plague of Athens to COVID-19
- By: Heather E. Quinlan
- Narrated by: Samara Naeymi
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts.
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Somewhat elemental
- By Bertha Watkins on 10-23-21
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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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Rabid
- A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus
- By: Bill Wasik, Monica Murphy
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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The most fatal virus known to science, rabies kills nearly 100 percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment, Rabid is a fresh, fascinating, and often wildly entertaining look at one of mankind’s oldest and most fearsome foes.
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Unexpected and Intriguing
- By Cynthia on 06-09-13
By: Bill Wasik, and others
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Happy Accidents
- Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century
- By: Morton A. Meyers
- Narrated by: Richard Waterhouse
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Happy Accidents is a fascinating, entertaining, and highly accessible look at the surprising role serendipity has played in some of the most important medical discoveries in the 20th century. What do penicillin, chemotherapy drugs, X-rays, Valium, the Pap smear, and Viagra have in common? They were each discovered accidentally, stumbled upon in the search for something else. In discussing medical breakthroughs, Dr. Morton Meyers makes a cogent, highly engaging argument for a more creative, rather than purely linear, approach to science. And it may just save our lives!
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Don't waste your money!
- By Amazon Customer on 03-20-16
By: Morton A. Meyers
What listeners say about The Pandemic Century
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lester
- 04-10-20
The century group plagues for 21st people
Enjoyed the audio book and reminds me of why we need to focus as a race on the health of the entire human race
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2 people found this helpful
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- HH
- 12-04-21
Interesting take on various pandemics
Kinda thrown off by narrator's voice. Author added some interesting inormation regarding the various pandemics that I hadn't heard before.
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- rholex
- 03-03-23
Pandemic solutions
We need to use common sense in reducing oandemic fatalities. Sanitation, hand, nasal and oral hygiene works. We need to keep beneficial microbiome in tact otherwise superbugs will have a chance to win.
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- Baz 12345
- 04-03-20
Pretty good
Its strength is detailing each outbreak, local story and circumstances.
It should have covered the Asian Flu of '57 and Hong Kong Flu of '68.
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10 people found this helpful
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- IowaGreyhound
- 06-08-20
Relevant book for today
As a microbiologist I enjoyed the book and found it scientifically sound. I was acquainted with most of the outbreaks discussed, but not psittacosis. I still picked up bits if information I had not heard before. written for the layperson in an interesting and informative manner. I hope someday the author adds information about COVID-19. I highly recommend this book.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Dinesh Kaushal
- 04-30-20
What the timing of the book
If you want to understand how pandemic spread, you must read this book. The book highlights how under funded our public health systems are.This book also explains how there are so many conspiracy theory is when a pandemic happens. This couldn’t be published at a better time than this.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Thomas
- 08-12-20
Terrifying Timing On This One-
Never mind that the book outlines fascinating science and the history of pandemics in relative times- The book seems like it was written for this time RIGHT NOW !
Not only are the main characters involved in COVID-19 a part of the story the meticulousness of the story applied to HIV/AIDS reminded me that I have been though more than my fair share of pandemics filled with bad decisions and paranoia-
So good that I purchased two printed copies: One to annotate to share with my students; One to give to my physician.
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- Rachel
- 10-28-21
Fear porn and false history
This book is an over simplified and reductionist view of history. It is a perpetuation of the corporate media's fear mongering and outdated germ theory. it gets so many things wrong about Polio, HIV, SARS and other phenomena. Unless you get off on hiding in your basement in crippling fear of imagined threats don't waste you time with this sensationalized twist on subjects that deserve so much more nuance and investigation.
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- DANIEL HENSLEY
- 12-16-20
Pretty good but too political.
This book was pretty good, but the author let his politics get in the way too much. He was quite eager to bash Reagan, Bush, and Trump, but lavished praise on Obama. He also gave a one sided perspective on the use of ZMapp during the 2014 outbreak of Ebola. This takes away from the book unfortunately.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Tom
- 04-25-20
So so
Too many off the topic inclusions for me. Some good facts but please keep to the point (who cares who knew who or what they ate in France when people needed to be solving the problems at hand),This book cold be whittled down to 10hrs of good listening with a good editor.
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2 people found this helpful