The Pandemic Century

One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris

By: Mark Honigsbaum

Narrated by: John Lee

Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From the Spanish flu to the 1924 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles to the 1930 "parrot fever" pandemic, through the more recent SARS, Ebola, and Zika epidemics, the last one hundred years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated pandemic alarms.

In The Pandemic Century, a lively account of scares both infamous and less known, Mark Honigsbaum combines reportage with the history of science and medical sociology to artfully reconstruct epidemiological mysteries and the ecology of infectious diseases. We meet dedicated disease detectives, obstructive or incompetent public health officials, and brilliant scientists often blinded by their own knowledge of bacteria and viruses. Like man-eating sharks, predatory pathogens are always present in nature, waiting to strike; when one is seemingly vanquished, others appear in its place. These pandemics remind us of the limits of scientific knowledge, as well as the role that human behavior and technologies play in the emergence and spread of microbial diseases.

©2019 Mark Honigsbaum (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Interesting take on various pandemics

Kinda thrown off by narrator's voice. Author added some interesting inormation regarding the various pandemics that I hadn't heard before.

The century group plagues for 21st people

Enjoyed the audio book and reminds me of why we need to focus as a race on the health of the entire human race

Pandemic solutions

We need to use common sense in reducing oandemic fatalities. Sanitation, hand, nasal and oral hygiene works. We need to keep beneficial microbiome in tact otherwise superbugs will have a chance to win.

Pretty good

Its strength is detailing each outbreak, local story and circumstances.

It should have covered the Asian Flu of '57 and Hong Kong Flu of '68.

Relevant book for today

As a microbiologist I enjoyed the book and found it scientifically sound. I was acquainted with most of the outbreaks discussed, but not psittacosis. I still picked up bits if information I had not heard before. written for the layperson in an interesting and informative manner. I hope someday the author adds information about COVID-19. I highly recommend this book.