“The Ghost Map” leads readers through London’s cholera epidemic

In a well-integrated blend of history, biography, and scientific discussion, author Steven Johnson recounts the search for the causes and cure of a specific disease: cholera. His book, The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, clearly presents the impacts of disease upon society, the methods employed in discovering a cure, and a discussion of why large, close, critical, urban populations foster the elements necessary for epidemics.

Scholarly and well-researched, the author presents London, England, in the nineteenth century without the romantic mystique that often surrounds this great cosmopolitan city. Society was stratified, the city strained to handle a burgeoning and rapidly expanding population, and waste disposal was sorely inadequate. It short, it was a breeding ground for disease and epidemic. As cholera relentlessly spread though the urban community, two forward-thinking and energetic men, Dr. John Snow and Henry Whitehead, pursued research and presentation to halt the progress of the disease. While Dr. John Snow mapped deaths and sources of water supply, Henry Whitehead determined all social classes were affected, not merely the impoverished lower-class. Scholarship, footwork, and invention on both their parts served to halt the spread of the disease.

The author clearly and cleanly presents the discoveries of these two intelligent and articulate men in step-by-step, logical fashion, allowing a glimpse of the scientific mind to find a correct solution in the face of popular and prevailing, but unsound, untested opinions. Parallels are drawn between our city-society problems and yesterday’s urban difficulties. Interesting, thoughtful, and well-written with new perspective, this book clearly demonstrates that a necessary understanding of the past allows us to implement solutions for the future. As the author states in the final paragraph, “However profound the threats are that confront us today, they are solvable, if we acknowledge the underlying problem, if we listen to science and not superstition, if we keep a channel open for dissenting voices that might actually have real answers.”