Here's a book recommendation for those of you looking for something different:
The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-deadliest-pandemic-history/dp/0143036491/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197920107&sr=8-1
Mixes history and medicine with a bit of politics and war for a look at the great influenza pandemic of 1918.
And this line from the review at Amazon is my biggest complaint about the book as well:
As other reviewers have noted, the book's weakness is a tendency towards melodrama, as in the far-too-often repeated tag line "This was influenza. Only influenza." After a while, you think to yourself, "Yes, we get it. Give it a rest."
There is no question about The Great Influenza being a monumental work. It's so good that you just have to overlook the bits of melodrama that pop up from time to time.
Other than that I found this to be a very interesting read.
John M. Barry spells out this connection in fascinating detail in The Great Influenza. In his meticulous description of the dire consequences that resulted when short-term political expediency trumped the health of the public during the 1918 influenza pandemic, Barry reminds his readers that the government response to an epidemic is all too often colored by the politics of the moment. Barry is neither a scientist nor a professional historian, and some of the details he gives on virology and immunology are clearly targeted at a nonmedical audience, but physicians and scientists will find this book engrossing nonetheless. The influenza pandemic of 1918, the worst pandemic in history, killed more people than died in World War I and more than the tens of millions who have died, to date, in the AIDS pandemic.
He also wrote a book called "Rising Tide" on the Mississippi River flooding and the engineers working to prevent it. Has much more politics involved in that book, as well as delving into race relations and other topics.
http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Tide-Mississippi-Changed-America/dp/0684840022/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197920517&sr=1-2
Again, from Amazon:
While tracing the history of the nation's most destructive natural disaster, Barry explains how ineptitude and greed helped cause the flood, and how the policies created to deal with the disaster changed the culture of the Mississippi Delta. Existing racial rifts expanded, helping to launch Herbert Hoover into the White House and shifting the political alliances of many blacks in the process. An absorbing account of a little-known, yet monumental event in American history, Rising Tide reveals how human behavior proved more destructive than the swollen river itself.
I had to read Rising Tide for a continuing education class I was taking for my engineering field. I enjoyed the book enough to seek out his book on the flu as well.
The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-deadliest-pandemic-history/dp/0143036491/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197920107&sr=8-1
Mixes history and medicine with a bit of politics and war for a look at the great influenza pandemic of 1918.
And this line from the review at Amazon is my biggest complaint about the book as well:
As other reviewers have noted, the book's weakness is a tendency towards melodrama, as in the far-too-often repeated tag line "This was influenza. Only influenza." After a while, you think to yourself, "Yes, we get it. Give it a rest."
There is no question about The Great Influenza being a monumental work. It's so good that you just have to overlook the bits of melodrama that pop up from time to time.
Other than that I found this to be a very interesting read.
John M. Barry spells out this connection in fascinating detail in The Great Influenza. In his meticulous description of the dire consequences that resulted when short-term political expediency trumped the health of the public during the 1918 influenza pandemic, Barry reminds his readers that the government response to an epidemic is all too often colored by the politics of the moment. Barry is neither a scientist nor a professional historian, and some of the details he gives on virology and immunology are clearly targeted at a nonmedical audience, but physicians and scientists will find this book engrossing nonetheless. The influenza pandemic of 1918, the worst pandemic in history, killed more people than died in World War I and more than the tens of millions who have died, to date, in the AIDS pandemic.
He also wrote a book called "Rising Tide" on the Mississippi River flooding and the engineers working to prevent it. Has much more politics involved in that book, as well as delving into race relations and other topics.
http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Tide-Mississippi-Changed-America/dp/0684840022/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197920517&sr=1-2
Again, from Amazon:
While tracing the history of the nation's most destructive natural disaster, Barry explains how ineptitude and greed helped cause the flood, and how the policies created to deal with the disaster changed the culture of the Mississippi Delta. Existing racial rifts expanded, helping to launch Herbert Hoover into the White House and shifting the political alliances of many blacks in the process. An absorbing account of a little-known, yet monumental event in American history, Rising Tide reveals how human behavior proved more destructive than the swollen river itself.
I had to read Rising Tide for a continuing education class I was taking for my engineering field. I enjoyed the book enough to seek out his book on the flu as well.
and you can't beat 2.99 for a brand new hard cover book.
