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A review by megatza
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
challenging
dark
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
3.0
In the middle of the 19th century, cholera ravaged a dense few blocks of Soho, London. In the Victorian era, the disease moved quickly and unrelentingly, often causing death within mere days, if not hours. Steven Johnson builds an intriguing investigative narrative around the outbreak and the 19th century debate over its cause: infected water versus miasma. Of course, he’s using the lens of 21st century medicine to comb through archives, but the account is compelling, as is the medical debate and the state of public health policy and planning in the Victorian era.
But Johnson loses me in two places: the abiding connection to maps he insists on and the extrapolation of this research to 21st century urban disasters like nuclear terrorism. From a modern perspective, public health maps are a critical resource, of course. Unfortunately the last 2.5 years have taught us that maps are not everything if the virus is airborne and even quarantines and vaccines have their limits. (I’d be intrigued if anyone has seen anything from Johnson revisiting his epilogue in light of our recent experiences.) But obviously, a book published in 2006 is going to have a very different outlook on outbreaks than one published in 2022.
That said, Johnson absolutely lost me, and a full star, when he drifted into his discussion of Euro-centric contemporary urban planning as the pinnacle of human achievement and the risk of nuclear or bioterrorism. His arguments have some merit (but should be tempered with a healthy dose of post-colonialism and a more contemporary approach to urban planning as well as the consideration of racism as a public health crisis), but they felt wildly out of place as the bulk of two very long chapters following his compelling narrative of Victorian medicine.
“There is something profoundly enlightening about seeing these patterns of life and death laid out in cartographic form. …. When the next great epidemic does come, maps will be as crucial as vaccines in our fight against the disease. But again, the scale of the observation will have broadened considerably from a neighborhood to an entire planet.”
That all said, the first part was very interesting - and sets the tone for so many of the historical romances I read! - and I appreciated that this was out #PlagueNovelPals pick for June.
But Johnson loses me in two places: the abiding connection to maps he insists on and the extrapolation of this research to 21st century urban disasters like nuclear terrorism. From a modern perspective, public health maps are a critical resource, of course. Unfortunately the last 2.5 years have taught us that maps are not everything if the virus is airborne and even quarantines and vaccines have their limits. (I’d be intrigued if anyone has seen anything from Johnson revisiting his epilogue in light of our recent experiences.) But obviously, a book published in 2006 is going to have a very different outlook on outbreaks than one published in 2022.
That said, Johnson absolutely lost me, and a full star, when he drifted into his discussion of Euro-centric contemporary urban planning as the pinnacle of human achievement and the risk of nuclear or bioterrorism. His arguments have some merit (but should be tempered with a healthy dose of post-colonialism and a more contemporary approach to urban planning as well as the consideration of racism as a public health crisis), but they felt wildly out of place as the bulk of two very long chapters following his compelling narrative of Victorian medicine.
“There is something profoundly enlightening about seeing these patterns of life and death laid out in cartographic form. …. When the next great epidemic does come, maps will be as crucial as vaccines in our fight against the disease. But again, the scale of the observation will have broadened considerably from a neighborhood to an entire planet.”
That all said, the first part was very interesting - and sets the tone for so many of the historical romances I read! - and I appreciated that this was out #PlagueNovelPals pick for June.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Excrement, and Vomit