The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
Posted by admin | Posted in Infectious Disease | Posted on 03-08-2010
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- ISBN13: 9780374230012
- Condition: New
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Product Description
In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their namesand opened their pocketbooksin hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren’t we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we’ve known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?
In The Fever, the journalist Sonia Shah sets out to answer these questions, delivering a timely, inquisitive chronicle of the illness and its influence on human lives. Through the centuries, she finds, we’ve invested our hopes in a panoply of drugs and technologies, and invariably those hopes have been dashed. From the settling of the New World to the construction of the Panama Canal, through wars and the advances of the Industrial Revolution, Shah tracks malaria’s jagged ascent and the tragedies in its wake, revealing a parasite every bit as persistent as the insects that carry it. With distinguished prose and original reporting from Panama, Malawi, Cameroon, India, and elsewhere, The Fever captures the curiously fascinating, devastating history of this long-standing thorn in the side of humanity.
Sonia Shah is an investigative journalist and the critically acclaimed author of The Body Hunters: Testing New Drugs on the World’s Poorest Patients and Crude: The Story of Oil. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, New Scientist, The Nation, and elsewhere.
In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their namesand opened their pocketbooksin hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren’t we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we’ve known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?
In The Fever, the journalist Sonia Shah sets out to answer these questions, delivering a timely, inquisitive chronicle of the illness and its influence on human lives. Through the centuries, she finds, we’ve invested our hopes in a panoply of drugs and technologies, and invariably those hopes have been dashed. From the settling of the New World to the construction of the Panama Canal, through wars and the advances of the Industrial Revolution, Shah tracks malaria’s jagged ascent and the tragedies in its wake, revealing a parasite every bit as persistent as the insects that carry it. With distinguished prose and original reporting from Panama, Malawi, Cameroon, India, and elsewhere, The Fever captures the curiously fascinating, devastating history of this long-standing thorn in the side of humanity.
I didn’t just read The FeverI inhaled it. It’s a fascinating book, elegantly written and superbly well researched: a poignant and important reminder of malaria’s relentless human toll.”Nina Munk, author of Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner
A thrilling detective story, spanning centuries, about our erratic pursuit of a villain still at large and still a threat to mankind. The Fever is rich in colorful detail and engagingly told. An astonishing array of characters has joined the fray, and you can only be amazed at the deviousness and skill of the archenemy.”Malcolm Molyneux, Professor, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Extremely well-researched, The Fever provides a highly gripping account of one of mankind’s worst diseases. Highly recommended.”Bart Knols, malariologist and managing director, MalariaWorld.org
“This fascinating, mordant pop-sci account tells us why malaria is one of the world’s greatest scourges, killing a million people every year and debilitating another 300 million, and why we have remained complacent about it. Journalist Shah (The Body Hunters: Testing New Drugs in the World’s Poorest Patients) shows how the Plasmodium parasite, entering through a mosquito’s bite and feasting on human red blood cells, has altered human history by destroying armies, undermining empires, and driving changes in our very genome. We’ve learned to fight back with antimalarial drugs and insecticides, but malaria’s adaptability and its buzzing vector, Shah notes, give it the upper hand. Shah provides an intricate and lucid rundown of the biology and ecology of malaria, but her most original insights concern the ways in which human society accommodates and abets the parasite. (The impoverished denizens of Africa’s malaria belt, she observes, would sometimes rather use the pesticide-laced bed nets sent by Western aid groups to catch fish.) Shah’s is an absorbing account of human ingenuity and progress, and of their heartbreaking limitations.”Publishers Weekly
The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
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Unlike the first 2 reviewers, who sound like they have a scientific or medical background, I am just a regular, ordinary person. I heard about this book from someone who had heard the author being interviewed on NPR, and it sounded like something I would like to read. I had enjoyed reading Richard Preston’s books on ebola and smallpox (The Demon in the Freezer was particulary good), so I checked this out and had the sample sent to my Kindle. I could not stop reading! The book is fascinating! You do not have to have a scientific or medical background to enjoy this. The author’s style is accessible, easy to read, and immediately captured my interest. I can’t wait to read the full book.
The drawback? The $12.99 kindle price. I am in agreement with the boycott of books priced over $9.99, so I will wait for the price to come down, or hope to find a good used print copy. For $13 I want a print copy I can hold in my hands. It is too much to pay for a kindle book. That being said, I repeat that I found the sample fascinating, and am extremely eager to read the whole book!
Rating: 5 / 5
The author begins the book with a look at how malaria developed and how the transmission cycle occurs in the Anopheles mosquito. Tracing it roots in Africa thousands of years ago, the author follows malarias spread around the world and explains why it is endemic in some areas while rarely found in others. She also delves into the issues of eradication and why it has failed to control, let alone conquer, the spread of the disease. From spraying to medications to netting, the author details why each has failed and how the malarial parasite has managed to survive most attempts to control it.
Most Americans rarely, if ever, think about malaria, and if they do, they think about it as it relates to poor African and South American countries which have not been able to eradicate malaria. I doubt many Americans are aware that we are precariously close to having malaria return to this country. Most mosquito experts will admit that we are potentially one infected person away from having malaria return to this country, and with globalization and easy travel available, it is inevitable that we will develop pockets of malaria. It really is just a matter of time.
The book is very well written, translating difficult technical information into very readable material that does not require scientific training to understand. As a board member of a mosquito control district, I am quite aware of how difficult it is to transmit readable, understandable information to the public, and the author has done an amazing job of doing just that. It should act as a wake up call to Americans about the dangers of malaria and why we need to be vigilant. I would recommend it to all, specifically those people living in areas where malaria is most likely to return.
Rating: 5 / 5
Malaria is not something most of us think about in-depth unless traveling to an area where the disease is common. However, this incredible book makes an excellent argument for why we should. The author manages to magically transform volumes of scientific information into a riveting tale that just about anyone will enjoy.
Ms. Shah traces the very complex history of malaria from the beginning of human/mosquito interaction, and covers a range of related topics including the routes of infection and transmission; why certain areas and populations are more susceptible to malaria; the role of war, technology, and industry in sparking the disease; and why the efforts to control or at least contain it have not been universally successful. The book is meticulously sourced (at least 30% of the text consists of the references listed at the end of the book and footnoted within each chapter), but is not dry in the least.
The book reads like fiction, and it’s too bad that it’s not. The author leaves the reader with a very well-developed sense that the merest change in environmental conditions can leave us all susceptible to the next wave of malaria. I recommend this book strongly to just about anyone, but particularly for those who are interested in medical history and public health.
Rating: 5 / 5