A review by dcumberland
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

3.0

This book was a Christmas gift, but man it was tough to read. First with the obvious: it’s gross. Yes, it’s about the cholera epidemic in London. But it goes to painstaking lengths to provide the detail of symptoms and means of spreading the microbes. Secondly, the tone is very academic, despite the marketing trying to appeal to a more general audience. Lastly, like many other reviewers pointed out, the last chapter is a bit of a rabbit trail considering it is predictive. The author predicts what large scale points of failure will arise in our lifetime, much like cholera did for Londoners in the 1860s. Very interesting subject matter, but this just gets too deep in the weeds for my liking.