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Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped Our History, by Dorothy H. Crawford
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Combining tales of devastating epidemics with accessible science and fascinating history, Deadly Companions reveals how closely microbes have evolved with us over the millennia, shaping human civilization through infection, disease, and deadly pandemic. Beginning with a dramatic account of the SARS pandemic at the start of the 21st century, Dorothy Crawford takes us back in time to follow the interlinked history of microbes and humanity, offering an up-to-date look at ancient plagues and epidemics, and identifying key changes in the way humans have lived--such as our move from hunter-gatherer to farmer to city-dweller--which made us ever more vulnerable to microbe attack. Showing that how we live our lives today--with increased crowding and air travel--puts us once again at risk, Crawford asks whether we might ever conquer microbes completely. Among the possible answers, one thing becomes clear: that for generations to come, our deadly companions will continue to influence our lives.
New in Paperback
- Sales Rank: #117074 in Books
- Published on: 2009-02-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 5.00" h x .80" w x 7.60" l, .44 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
- ISBN13: 9780199561445
- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Review
"Crawford suggests that when it comes to microbes, despite our scientific knowledge, we are not better-off than our ancestors."-- Science News in the "new and notable books of scientific interest" section.
About the Author
Dorothy Crawford is Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Edinburgh, where she is also Assistant Principal for the Public Understanding of Medicine. She was awarded an OBE in 2005 for services to medicine and higher education.
Books by the same author:
The Invisible Enemy: A Natural History of Viruses
Most helpful customer reviews
42 of 45 people found the following review helpful.
Our Unwinnable War
By Rob Hardy
Bacteria have a bad reputation. We think of them as causing illness, and that's correct, of course, but overwhelmingly they do not cause us harm. Without them, indeed, we could not digest our food, and elements could not be recycled into the environment. They have been performing this sort of vital service for around 600 million years. There are a million or so microbes we know about, and of them, only 1,415 are known to cause disease in humans, with the rest steadily chugging away to keep the world in balance. Those pathogenic ones are the main subject in _Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped Our History_ (Oxford University Press) by Dorothy H. Crawford. A microbiologist, Crawford has written plenty of scientific papers, but here (as in a previous book about viruses) she writes for a popular audience to show how microbes, especially the ones that bother and kill us, have affected the humans that are interlopers in their world. We must never forget that most microbes are our companions and are not deadly, and that we live in a mutually beneficial partnership with millions of them. But it is their world: "We relative newcomers to the planet," ominously writes Crawford, "emerge from the safe environment of our mother's womb pristine, untouched by the infectious microbes, but within hours our bodies are colonised by swarms of them, all intent on living off this new food source."
Microbes don't mean to hurt us, of course, and despite the upsurge of religious feeling that accompanies any plague, there is no reason to think that they are doing anything but their natural cycles without any supernatural tinkering to deliver lessons to afflicted humans. The great problem with infective microbes is that they can change faster than we can. Resistance to the antibiotics we have had for only a few decades is merely the most recent manifestation of their evolutionary adaptability, and there is no reason to think that any new generation of antibiotics is going to change this pattern. Crawford shows how different microbes afflicted us when we were hunter gatherers than did so when we changed to living in farming communities. Diseases have changed history. The ruler Crawford mentions that seems to have been most affected by them was Napoleon. He wanted to extend his empire into the New World, but mosquito-borne yellow fever decimated the troops within the Caribbean, and prevented his plan to move on to New Orleans and points north. It was not just the cold and starvation that kept Napoleon's troops from taking Russia. Louse-borne typhus took its toll, and without it, many historians think Napoleon could have gone on to conquer Europe.
Crawford takes up bubonic plague, the potato blight fungus, cholera, smallpox and many more, explaining the natural cycle of each microbe, its vectors (mosquitoes, fleas, lice) and its reservoirs in the wild (snails, birds, cattle). It isn't all biology; Crawford points out that _the_ major cause of microbe-related deaths is poverty, with a hugely disproportionate toll on poorer nations. The science she writes about, all with clarity and enthusiasm, is something new, especially compared to how long we have been going about with these microbial companions. Dealing with diseases scientifically has been regarded as impious; she quotes a 1722 sermon railing against smallpox vaccination "... because inoculation opposes the will of God, who sends disease (including smallpox) either to try our faith or to punish us for our sins." Science, however, is not going to keep us out of trouble; we have headlines these days about microbes that are resistant to our miracle drugs, and our own misuse of drugs against tuberculosis has resulted not in "multiply drug resistant" TB, but in "extensively drug resistant" TB, with "completely drug resistant" TB looming in the future. Even if we were to invent the superdrug researchers jokingly call "gorillacillin", it would kill off our helper microbes as well as the villains, and history shows that even such a drug would be overcome by resistance eventually. It isn't hopeless, and Crawford has written a sobering but not a pessimistic book. We have won battles, and that's something to be proud of. But we will have to content ourselves with winning battles, for we will never win the war.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A formidable case for evolution and natural selection
By johnn
Quite a bit over my head. One needs to have some background in microbiology and bacteriology to understand the consequences of those damned microbes. It is definite "proof" of Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection. I felt that the narrative made a strong case for evolution and totally demolished the case for "creation science." I wish the book was less technical, although I have no idea on how to accomplish that goal. I commend the author for making to attempt to enlighten the unenlightened.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Makes the book very easy to read
By Amazon Customer
Truly interesting book! Crawford uses a unique style of writing, somewhat of an informal and casual style. Makes the book very easy to read.
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