Vous voulez voir cette page en fran�ais ? Cliquez ici.

Quantity:

More Buying Choices

29 used & new from CDN$ 6.82

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Share your own customer images

Search inside another edition of this book

Ghost Map (Paperback)

by Steven Johnson (Author)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

List Price:	CDN$ 16.50
Price:	CDN$ 12.05 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
You Save:	CDN$ 4.45 (27%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

Only 5 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Ordering for Christmas? To ensure delivery by December 24 to Toronto, Ottawa, or Montreal, choose Express at checkout. Read more about holiday shipping.

18 new from CDN$ 8.95 11 used from CDN$ 6.82

Frequently Bought Together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Necropolis: London and its Dead

by Catharine Arnold

5.0 out of 5 stars (1) CDN$ 10.95

The Invention Of Air

by Steven Johnson

4.0 out of 5 stars (1) CDN$ 10.83

The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

by J. Maarten Troost

4.5 out of 5 stars (11) CDN$ 12.05

Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach

by Joseph A. Maxwell

5.0 out of 5 stars (2) CDN$ 52.20

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

by Erik Larson

4.2 out of 5 stars (254) CDN$ 13.83

› Explore similar items

Product Details

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Riverhead (TRD); 1 Reprint edition (Oct 2 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594482691
ISBN-13: 978-1594482694
Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14 x 2.3 cm
Shipping Weight: 295 g

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #34,045 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Popular in these categories:

#8 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Biology > Microbiology
#11 in	Books > Science > Biological Sciences > Biology > Microbiology
#14 in	Books > Medicine > Diseases > Communicable

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Amazon.ca

Steven Johnson, bestselling author of Everything Bad is Good for You, is fantastically gifted, and anyone who doubts it need only consider this: in The Ghost Map, Johnson manages to make filth, overpopulation, feces and death the cornerstones of one of the year's snappiest page-turners. On the simplest level, The Ghost Map is the true-life tale of the cholera scourge that slammed London in 1854 and the two passionate and whip-smart men who ferreted out its cause. But it's also a biography, a detective saga, a horror story, a history lesson, a sociological rumination on cities, an unlikely but gripping celebration of the modern sewer system and a vivid portrait of historic London life.
"London's underground market of scavenging had its own system of rank and privilege, and near the top were the night-soil men," Johnson observes. "Like the beloved chimney sweeps of Mary Poppins, the night-soil men worked as independent contractors at the very edge of the legitimate economy, though their labor was significantly more revolting than the foraging of the mud-larks and toshers.

"City landlords hired the men to remove the "night soil" from the overflowing cesspools of their buildings. The collecting of human excrement was a venerable occupation; in medieval times they were called rakers. [But] the work conditions could be deadly: in 1326, an ill-fated laborer by the name of Richard the Raker fell into a cesspool and literally drowned in human shit."

Nice. Clearly much more than just a dry recitation of data--though the depth of Johnson's research is obvious--The Ghost Map is a hair-raiser that cooks from page one. A big reason is Johnson's ability to personify and animate what he terms "the invisible kingdom of microscopic bacteria," transforming cholera into a nefarious three-dimensional villain with a role to play and zest for the part.

His work as biographer also impresses. Johnson gives us two protagonists all but forgotten by history who really should be feted: Dr. John Snow, who 150 years ago in an era of superstition and tenaciously held scientific notions, managed to work out the simple equation that excrement + drinking water = death. We also meet Reverend Henry Whitehead who similarly helped to crack the cholera riddle by flat-footing it through Soho, interviewing residents and survivors and eventually coming to believe that Snow was onto something with his water-borne disease theory. (The prevailing wisdom of the day held that disease was airborne and linked to smell).

It is no exaggeration to say that Snow's efforts changed the world. Ditto engineer Joseph Bazalgette, whose sprawling, visionary English sewer system Johnson likens in stature and scope to the Eiffel Tower and Brooklyn Bridge. The Ghost Map is a great, great book, stuffed with cool factoids and told by a writer so conversant in his topic that it plays like an exquisite yarn shared over friendly beers. --Kim Hughes --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. On August 28, 1854, working-class Londoner Sarah Lewis tossed a bucket of soiled water into the cesspool of her squalid apartment building and triggered the deadliest outbreak of cholera in the city's history. In this tightly written page-turner, Johnson (Everything Bad Is Good for You) uses his considerable skill to craft a story of suffering, perseverance and redemption that echoes to the present day. Describing a city and culture experiencing explosive growth, with its attendant promise and difficulty, Johnson builds the story around physician John Snow. In the face of a horrifying epidemic, Snow (pioneering developer of surgical anesthesia) posited the then radical theory that cholera was spread through contaminated water rather than through miasma, or smells in the air. Against considerable resistance from the medical and bureaucratic establishment, Snow persisted and, with hard work and groundbreaking research, helped to bring about a fundamental change in our understanding of disease and its spread. Johnson weaves in overlapping ideas about the growth of civilization, the organization of cities, and evolution to thrilling effect. From Snow's discovery of patient zero to Johnson's compelling argument for and celebration of cities, this makes for an illuminating and satisfying read. B&w illus. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.

Explore More
Concordance

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

history of science(1)

microbiology(1)

steven johnson(1)

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

	82% buy the item featured on this page: Ghost Map 4.3 out of 5 stars (3) CDN$ 12.05
	7% buy The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America 4.2 out of 5 stars (254) CDN$ 13.83
	5% buy Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software 3.4 out of 5 stars (66) CDN$ 13.86
	4% buy Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life 4.3 out of 5 stars (14) CDN$ 12.05

Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breaking the paradigm, Jan 15 2008

By	L. Ramsey - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The story follows the cholera epidemic in the Soho district of London during the summer of 1854 which originated in a well on Broad Street. We know this through the investigations of two men, John Snow, a medical doctor and Henry Whitehead, a clergyman at the local church. If it was up to the members of the local health board, the story of the spread of cholera and the origin of the Broad Street epidemic would have been very different. It would have come from those noxious fumes created by an -overabundance of fecal matter, otherwise known as miasma, produced by people living within a densely populated area without the advantage of a proper sewage system. Yet, these two men fought against the collective will of the so-called experts to produce evidence that would forever change our understanding of how cholera is spread and in so doing, save the lives of thousands of their fellow citizenry. John Snow was sure that cholera was spread by water. Henry Whitehead was able to trace the origin of the contaminated water that caused the Broad Street epidemic because he knew the area and his congregation far better than Dr. Snow ever could. Mr. Johnson draws parallels between the cooperative effort of these two men and the realities of today where experts and citizenry work together to find solutions to problems that would otherwise be outside the capacity of any one individual.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How our Cities became Healthy Places to Live, Dec 31 2006

By	Kelly Rossiter (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Ghost Map (Hardcover)

A local reviewer said about Steven Johnson's new book: "if you can only read one book about cholera this season, this is it!"

TreeHugger often talks about the benefits of density, about the virtues of cities, about the lessons from Jane Jacobs. We also talk of the need for clean water and sanitation in so much of the world, how the death of millions of children is completely preventable. If one wants to understand how density became safe and how cities became answers instead of problems, there is no better place to start than Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map, "The story of London's most terrifying epidemic- and how it changed science, cities and the modern world".

In 1854 London, there was density without infrastructure; everything was recycled by" bone-pickers, rag-gatherers, pure-finders (dogpoop collectors who sold it to tanners) dredgermen, mud-larks, sewer-hunters, dustmen, night-soil men, bunters, toshers and shoremen, a hundred thousand strong. Recycling made the city work, because nobody had developed the networks of waste management and water supply needed to support such densities since Roman times. A few private water companies piped water from the Thames; otherwise one used the public pumps. Human waste was tossed into cesspools, rear yards, even basements, and the smell was awful. Prevailing wisdom said that disease was carried in the miasma, or in the air, and the more it smelled, the sicker one would get. Consequently the authorities started building sewer lines that carried water away from the cesspools and into the Thames, source of much of London's drinking water.

In September, 1854, a young child died from cholera in Broad Street, Soho. Soon people were dying by the hundreds and then thousands. Dr. John Snow didn't believe in miasma- why did sewermen who were surrounded by evil smells in their work live to a ripe old age? He thought it was in the water. He started plotting where people lived who got sick, and came to the conclusion that it came from the Broad Street water pump. But why did someone from a few blocks away get sick? They liked Broad Street water and walked a few blocks for it. And why did brewery workers right next to the pump not get sick? They drank beer. Eventually he convinced local authorities to remove the handle from the pump and the epidemic ended. it still took a lot more work to figure out how the contamination got in, but John Snow and Reverend Henry Whitehead eventually did.

The lessons learned here resonate to this day. By 1868 London had a massive new sewer system and never suffered another death from cholera, which is now a scourge of the developing world. All of the squatter cities of Africa and South America are replicating the conditions of 1850 London, and two million children are dying each year.

Meanwhile, in the developed world, people are living in densities that let us live more efficiently, with better services and more vibrant cultures than anyone could imagine. We quote: "As environmental scholar Toby Hemenway says, "Virtually any service system- electricity, fuel, food- follows the same brutal mathematics of scale. A dispersed population requires more resources to serve it-and to connect it together- than a concentrated one" and as Jane Jacobs said, "Cities were once the most helpless and devastated victims of disease, but they became great disease conquerors."

Other reviewers consider Johnson's last chapter on the importance of dense cities to be a diversion, but it is critical to make the direct connection between what happened in 1854, with the subsquent massive state intervention to build a proper infrastructure of services to serve London, and with what is happening today both where we live in the first world and where children are dying in the third. Clean water is a human right.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

4.0 out of 5 stars The Ghost Map, Jul 1 2009

By	Hemant Kulkarni - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Historical non-fiction that reads like a novel. A page-turner that will appeal to anyone who is interested in epidemiology and/or urban studies and anyone who enjoyed medical suspense novels such as "Outbreak".

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews...