PANDEMIC: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
Nonfiction Looking for the next epidemic PANDEMIC: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond By Sonia Shah 288 pp. Picador Reviewed by Lynne M. Hinkey From the bubonic plague to HIV/AIDS, contagious diseases have loomed large in human history, and influenced human evolution, behavior, and culture. They intrigue us in the way a train wreck does, leaving us wondering how it could happen and fearful lest it happen to us. But, surprisingly, most of us have very little understanding of how these diseases start, spread, or even factual information on how great – or small – a threat any one of these might be to us. We tend to overreact to distant, vague threats, like Ebola, but brush off as inconsequential the more familiar and likely threat of Lyme disease. Pandemic explores the human health, economic, social, and even that specific psychological phenomenon of potentially deadly infectious disease. Using the well-documented and understood mechanisms of cholera’s spread as a...