The Ghost Map

Download or read book The Ghost Map written by Steven Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It is the summer of 1854. Cholera has seized London with unprecedented intensity. A metropolis of more than 2 million people, London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure necessary to support its dense population - garbage removal, clean water, sewers - the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease that no one knows how to cure." "As their neighbors begin dying, two men are spurred to action: the Reverend Henry Whitehead, whose faith in a benevolent God is shaken by the seemingly random nature of the victims, and Dr. John Snow, whose ideas about contagion have been dismissed by the scientific community, but who is convinced that he knows how the disease is being transmitted. The Ghost Map chronicles the outbreak's spread and the desperate efforts to put an end to the epidemic - and solve the most pressing medical riddle of the age."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Enemy of All Mankind written by Steven Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Thoroughly engrossing . . . a spirited, suspenseful, economically told tale whose significance is manifest and whose pace never flags.” —The Wall Street Journal From The New York Times–bestselling author of The Ghost Map and Extra Life, the story of a pirate who changed the world Henry Every was the seventeenth century’s most notorious pirate. The press published wildly popular—and wildly inaccurate—reports of his nefarious adventures. The British government offered enormous bounties for his capture, alive or (preferably) dead. But Steven Johnson argues that Every’s most lasting legacy was his inadvertent triggering of a major shift in the global economy. Enemy of All Mankind focuses on one key event—the attack on an Indian treasure ship by Every and his crew—and its surprising repercussions across time and space. It’s the gripping tale of one of the most lucrative crimes in history, the first international manhunt, and the trial of the seventeenth century. Johnson uses the extraordinary story of Henry Every and his crimes to explore the emergence of the East India Company, the British Empire, and the modern global marketplace: a densely interconnected planet ruled by nations and corporations. How did this unlikely pirate and his notorious crime end up playing a key role in the birth of multinational capitalism? In the same mode as Johnson’s classic nonfiction historical thriller The Ghost Map, Enemy of All Mankind deftly traces the path from a single struck match to a global conflagration.

Download or read book Extra Life written by Steven Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Offers a useful reminder of the role of modern science in fundamentally transforming all of our lives.” —President Barack Obama (on Twitter) “An important book.” —Steven Pinker, The New York Times Book Review The surprising and important story of how humans gained what amounts to an extra life, from the bestselling author of How We Got to Now and Where Good Ideas Come From In 1920, at the end of the last major pandemic, global life expectancy was just over forty years. Today, in many parts of the world, human beings can expect to live more than eighty years. As a species we have doubled our life expectancy in just one century. There are few measures of human progress more astonishing than this increased longevity. Extra Life is Steven Johnson’s attempt to understand where that progress came from, telling the epic story of one of humanity’s greatest achievements. How many of those extra years came from vaccines, or the decrease in famines, or seatbelts? What are the forces that now keep us alive longer? Behind each breakthrough lies an inspiring story of cooperative innovation, of brilliant thinkers bolstered by strong systems of public support and collaborative networks, and of dedicated activists fighting for meaningful reform. But for all its focus on positive change, this book is also a reminder that meaningful gaps in life expectancy still exist, and that new threats loom on the horizon, as the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear. How do we avoid decreases in life expectancy as our public health systems face unprecedented challenges? What current technologies or interventions that could reduce the impact of future crises are we somehow ignoring? A study in how meaningful change happens in society, Extra Life celebrates the enduring power of common goals and public resources, and the heroes of public health and medicine too often ignored in popular accounts of our history. This is the sweeping story of a revolution with immense public and personal consequences: the doubling of the human life span.

Download or read book The Invention of Air written by Steven Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author Johnson recounts the story of Joseph Priestley--scientist and theologian, protege of Benjamin Franklin--an 18th-century radical thinker who played pivotal roles in the invention of ecosystem science, the founding of the Unitarian Church, and the intellectual development of the U.S.

Download or read book The Ghost Network written by Catie Disabato and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Has the world’s hottest pop star been kidnapped, joined a secret sect, or simply gone into hiding? The answer lies in the abandoned subway stations of Chicago . . . One minute insanely famous pop singer Molly Metropolis is on her way to a major performance in Chicago, and the next, she’s gone. A journalist who’s been covering Molly joins the singer's personal assistant in an increasingly desperate search to find her, guided by a journal left behind in her hotel room, and possible clues hidden in her songs—all of which seem to point to an abandoned line in the Chicago subway system. It leads them to a map of half-completed train lines underneath Chicago, which in turn leads them to the secret, subterranean headquarters of an obscure intellectual sect—and the realization that they’ve gone too far to turn back. And if a superstar can disappear without a trace . . . what can happen to these young women? Suspenseful and wildly original, The Ghost Network is a novel about larger-than-life fantasies—of love, sex, pop music, amateur detective work, and personal reinvention. Debut novelist Catie Disabato bursts on the scene with an ingeniously plotted, witty, haunting mystery.

Download or read book The Mapmaker and the Ghost written by Sarvenaz Tash and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Goldenrod Moram loves adventure, especially when it comes in the form of mapmaking. An avid fan of the legendary explorers Lewis and Clark, she decides to start her own exploring team, the Legendary Adventurers, and to spend her summer vacation discovering the unmapped forest right behind her home. This simple task is complicated by a series of unique events-a chance encounter with a mysterious old lady has her searching for a legendary blue rose. Another, more unfortunate, encounter lands her in the middle of a ragtag bunch of nicknamed ruffians. Throw in the trapped spirit of Meriwether Lewis himself and her well-meaning but nuisance of a little brother, and Goldenrod Moram is in for the quest of a lifetime . . .

Download or read book The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump written by Sandra Hempel and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description