Product Description

No creature has directly touched the lives of more human beings than the mosquito. It has been a nuisance, a pollinator of plants and an angel of death all over the globe. And throughout history, much of our trouble with the mosquito has been caused by man himself. This is a study of one tiny insect, its devastating role in history and its growing threat to mankind. It tells the story of man's struggle to live with the mosquito, from the defeat of Sir Francis Drake's fleet, to the death of thousands of Frenchmen working on the Panama Canal, to the panic over West Nile Virus in New York in 2000.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #934010 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
According to Andrew Spielman, a Harvard University specialist in tropical disease and his coauthor of Mosquito, award-winning science writer Michael D'Antonio, no animal on earth has touched so directly and profoundly the lives of so many human beings as the mosquito. Mosquito is their fascinating account for the general reader of the life story of this tiny insect and the havoc it has wrought over the millennia from the Roman soldiers that died of malaria in Scotland to the tens of thousands that died of yellow fever during the first attempt by the French to build the Panama canal at the end of the 19th century. Now the mosquito is back with a vengeance and her pathogens are apparently getting worse, making more people sick and claiming more lives, millions of lives, every year. Mosquito is full of fascinating facts and stories about the amazing variability of the insect. There are some 2500 species of mosquito compared with 4000 species for all mammals. Mosquitoes can survive almost anywhere on land from below sea level in the Californian desert up to 8000 ft in the Himalayas, and Spielman has found the common house mosquito from Harvard in the US to Confucius's grave in China. Some are so numerous and voracious that herds of caribou will migrate hundreds of miles to try and avoid the aggressive Arctic mosquitoes. Only the female mosquito practices the vampirism that does the damage and then she is only trying to feed her eggs. Reading her life story, one almost feels sorry for her. But she is the unwitting host to numerous lethal pathogens that not only cause malaria but also dengue, West Nile fever, yellow fever, etc. As Spielman and D'Antonio say, "The key to our relationship with the mosquito is getting to know it better... we still do not know what it is about blood, specifically, that mosquitoes crave for reproduction." Check the distribution maps at the back before you next take an exotic holiday. --Douglas Palmer

Review
Would you describe a mosquito as 'beautiful'? The authors of this book do, as they detail its life-cycle and list its effect on mankind and the rest of the animal kingdom. Mosquitos have little use in the world it seems, other than to carry terrible diseases like Malaria, Dengue and Yellow fever. They need blood in order to reproduce and feed their young, and will live in any stagnant water. One species, the Tiger mosquito, favoured the inside of old car tyres as its home and was imported in this way, unknowingly by man, into Texas in the 1980s. The mozzie is not to be trifled with: in the arctic it can completely drain a caribou carcass of blood. The book tells of the awful toll on human lives throughout the ages, and the way global movement of people and commodities can introduce this serious menace. The pages turn fast; written with immense enthusiasm and knowledge. The human-suffering over the centuries is fascinating and horrifying. The authors question the banning of DDT because this chemical seems to control mosquitos more effectively than others. They conclude that genetic engineering may play a part in the future, but until a method of controlling them has been found, the mosquito will spread. Very readable and sure to please the junior entomologist as well as the general reader. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
Andrew Spielman is Harvard University's senior specialist in tropical illness, and the current director of the Center for International Development's new effort to develop a global anti-malarial strategy. Michael D'Antonio is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

Customer Reviews

Fortelling the end of the world.....
Forget the sun exploding or global warming, the mosquito is probably going to be our downfall. Man's relentless interference with nature is graphically put into perspective in this book. The early chapters are a little repetative and you keep feeling, "hang on haven't I read this bit?" but once thye book gets to the meat it is a frightening and compelling read. I will never go out in the tropics again without my insect repellant that is for sure.

Good mix of science and storytelling
I am sometimes wary of buying books with more that one author, worried that the narriative voice will be all jumbled. Mosquito is well written. It gives you enough gorey details and personal histories to keep you interested and includes some interesting science along the way. Some of the stastics are staggering - the mosquito is responsible for nearly half the deaths of all the people who have ever lived! For me this book embodies so much of what makes good science writing: compelling story telling, hard science and it leaves you with something to think about at the end.

MOSQUITO
I read this book about 2 years ago and kept it as a reference source. It is a nice concise book ideal for anyone who wants a basic understanding of how the devil's agent on earth goes about it's work. It is amazing how down the centuries people swatted it and never connecting the diseases with the insect. Only with the discovery of the microscope did we see the tiny world so far hidden from our view. Somehow the Mosquito keeps one step ahead of all attempts to eradicate it - there are many insects which we hate but they usually have a purpose as the house fly cleans up organic debris but it is difficult to see what purpose the Mosquito has on earth.