Product Description

Ever since we started huddling together in communities, the story of human history has been inextricably entwined with the story of microbes. They have evolved and spread amongst us, shaping our culture through infection, disease, and pandemic. At the same time, our changing human culture has itself influenced the evolutionary path of microbes. Dorothy H. Crawford here shows that one cannot be truly understood without the other. Beginning with a dramatic account of the SARS pandemic at the start of the 21st century, she takes us back in time to follow the interlinked history of microbes and man, taking an up-to-date look at ancient plagues and epidemics, and identifying key changes in the way humans have lived - such as our move from hunter-gatherer to farmer to city-dweller - which made us vulnerable to microbe attack. Showing how we live our lives today - with increasing crowding and air travel - puts us once again at risk, Crawford asks whether we might ever conquer microbes completely, or whether we need to take a more microbe-centric view of the world. Among the possible answers, one thing becomes clear: that for generations to come, our deadly companions will continue to shape human history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23226 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
Lucid and authoritative... crisply written narrative. Wendy Moore, Sunday Telegraph Fascinating... Deadly Companions is authoritative, detailed and - despite its gruesome subject - never sensational. PD Smith, The Guardian

Review
Lucid and authoritative... crisply written narrative. (Wendy Moore, Sunday Telegraph )

Fascinating... Deadly Companions is authoritative, detailed and - despite its gruesome subject - never sensational. (PD Smith, The Guardian )

Synopsis
Ever since we started huddling together in communities, the story of human history has been inextricably entwined with the story of microbes. They have evolved and spread amongst us, shaping our culture through infection, disease, and pandemic. At the same time, our changing human culture has itself influenced the evolutionary path of microbes. Dorothy H. Crawford here shows that one cannot be truly understood without the other. Beginning with a dramatic account of the SARS pandemic at the start of the 21st century, she takes us back in time to follow the interlinked history of microbes and man, taking an up-to-date look at ancient plagues and epidemics, and identifying key changes in the way humans have lived - such as our move from hunter-gatherer to farmer to city-dweller - which made us vulnerable to microbe attack. Showing how we live our lives today - with increasing crowding and air travel - puts us once again at risk, Crawford asks whether we might ever conquer microbes completely, or whether we need to take a more microbe-centric view of the world.Among the possible answers, one thing becomes clear: that for generations to come, our deadly companions will continue to shape human history.

Customer Reviews

Not quite dull
History is full of fascinating stories of how infectious diseases have impacted upon the course of human history. Some of these stories are relatively small ones, like the appalling effect of poor sanitation on the lives of the poor in sprawling urban societies. Other stories have epic sweep:the Black Death, or the devastating introduction of Old World diseases to the New World.

Sadly, the author of this book couldn't tell a good story to save her life. She is extremely well-informed, very good at explaining the microbiology of the illnesses she describes, and if you read this book you will be a better educated person. But that simplicity of expression comes at a price. The written style is flat, there is no sense of narrative, no story-telling, and some gripping stories pass by with all the excitement of an auditor's report. The overall effect is of a university lecturer trying very hard to make a dull subject interesting; in doing so this book almost succeeds in making a fascinating subject dull.

It may be a matter of taste: here is a scientist writing about history. Perhaps I would have preferred to read a book written by a historian about science.

But it's interesting enough. I don't regret having bought it. And I'm now *much* better informed about Yersina Pestis.

Scholarly, interesting, well-written and alarming
The author is a professor of microbiology who has written an excellent book for the lay-person interested in the struggle between microbes and humans. It's partly a history of the ever-changing balance between the two from early man as a hunter/gatherer to modern urbane life. She makes it very clear how the development of agriculture and the gathering together of people into towns has increased our vulnerability to a greater range of organisms.

At times it reads almost like a war as viruses, bacteria and fungi rapidly mutate and sometimes collaborate to defeat our immune systems. I have a biological background but learned a lot about the latest microbiological research which is revealing just how well these microbes are doing in infecting us to their benefit. After reading this book I feel more alarmed at just how vulnerable we are to new microbes evolving with lethal power, but it also made me think more about how to avoid helping them by,for example, taking unnecessary antibiotics or failing to complete a course of treatment.