books tagged “disease”

›
› Find signed collectible books by ''

English

via
And the Band Played on
by Randy Shilts

ISBN 0312241356 (0-312-24135-6)
Softcover, St Martins Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'And the Band Played on'
Book summary:
In the first major book on AIDS, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Randy Shilts examines the making of an epidemic. Shilts researched and reported the book exhaustively, chronicling almost day-by-day the first five years of AIDS. His work is critical of the medical and scientific communities' initial response and particularly harsh on the Reagan Administration, who he claims cut funding, ignored calls for action and deliberately misled Congress. Shilts doesn't stop there, wondering why more people in the gay community, the mass media and the country at large didn't stand up in anger more quickly. The AIDS pandemic is one of the most striking developments of the late 20th century and this is the definitive story of its beginnings. [via]
More editions of And the Band Played on:
via
The Andromeda Strain
by Michael Crichton

ISBN 0060541814 (0-06-054181-4)
Softcover, Avon Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Andromeda Strain'
Book summary:
Some biologists speculate that if we ever make contact with extraterrestrials, those life forms are likely to be--like most life on earth--one-celled or smaller creatures, more comparable to bacteria than little green men. And even though such organisms would not likely be able to harm humans, the possibility exists that first contact might be our last.
That's the scientific supposition that Michael Crichton formulates and follows out to its conclusion in his excellent debut novel, The Andromeda Strain.
A Nobel-Prize-winning bacteriologist, Jeremy Stone, urges the president to approve an extraterrestrial decontamination facility to sterilize returning astronauts, satellites, and spacecraft that might carry an "unknown biologic agent." The government agrees, almost too quickly, to build the top-secret Wildfire Lab in the desert of Nevada. Shortly thereafter, unbeknownst to Stone, the U.S. Army initiates the "Scoop" satellite program, an attempt to actively collect space pathogens for use in biological warfare. When Scoop VII crashes a couple years later in the isolated Arizona town of Piedmont, the Army ends up getting more than it asked for.
The Andromeda Strain follows Stone and rest of the scientific team mobilized to react to the Scoop crash as they scramble to understand and contain a strange and deadly outbreak. Crichton's first book may well be his best; it has an earnestness that is missing from his later, more calculated thrillers. --Paul Hughes [via]
More editions of The Andromeda Strain:
via
Apocalipsis
by Stephen King

ISBN 8497599411 (84-9759-941-1)
Softcover, Debolsillo

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Apocalipsis'
Book summary:
Spanish edition [via]
More editions of Apocalipsis:
- Apocalipsis: ISBN 8497599411 (84-9759-941-1)
  Softcover, Debolsillo
Armies of Pestilence : The Effects of Pandemics on History
by R. S. Bray

ISBN 0718829492 (0-7188-2949-2)
Hardcover, Lutterworth Press, The

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Armies of Pestilence : The Effects of Pandemics on History'
More editions of Armies of Pestilence : The Effects of Pandemics on History:
- Armies of Pestilence : The Effects of Pandemics on History: ISBN 0718829492 (0-7188-2949-2)
  Hardcover, Lutterworth Press, The
Armies of Pestilence: The Impact of Disease on History
by R.S. Bray

ISBN 022717240X (0-227-17240-X)
Softcover, James Clarke

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Armies of Pestilence: The Impact of Disease on History'
More editions of Armies of Pestilence: The Impact of Disease on History:
- Armies of Pestilence: The Impact of Disease on History: ISBN 022717240X (0-227-17240-X)
  Softcover, James Clarke
via
The Coming Plague
by Laurie Garrett

ISBN 0140250913 (0-14-025091-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Coming Plague'
Book summary:
Where's your next disease coming from? From anywhere in the world--from overflowing sewage in Cairo, from a war zone in Rwanda, from an energy-efficient office building in California, from a pig farm in China or North Carolina. "Preparedness demands understanding" writes Pulitzer-winning journalist Laurie Garrett, and in this precursor to Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health she shows true understanding of the patterns lying beneath the new diseases in the headlines (AIDS, Lyme) and the old ones resurgent (tuberculosis, cholera). As the human population explodes, ecologies collapse and simplify, and disease organisms move into the gaps. As globalisation continues, diseases can move from one country to another as fast as an aeroplane can fly.
While the human race battles itself... the advantage moves to the microbes' court. They are our predators and they will be victorious if we, Homo sapiens, do not learn how to live in a rational global village that affords the microbes few opportunities.
Her picture is not entirely bleak: epidemics grow when a disease outbreak is amplified--by contaminated water supplies, by shared needles, by recirculated air, by prostitution--and controlling disease amplifiers is within our power, a matter of money, people and will. --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
More editions of The Coming Plague:
- The Coming Plague: ISBN 0374126461 (0-374-12646-1)
  Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
- The Coming Plague: ISBN 0140250913 (0-14-025091-3)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
Deadly Feasts
by Richard Rhodes

ISBN 0684844257 (0-684-84425-7)
Softcover, Touchstone Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Deadly Feasts'
More editions of Deadly Feasts:
- Deadly Feasts: ISBN 0684844257 (0-684-84425-7)
  Softcover, Touchstone Books
via
Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague
by Richard Rhodes

ISBN 0684823608 (0-684-82360-8)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague'
Book summary:
In a non-fiction narrative that reads like a medical thriller, richard rhodes follows virus hunters on three continents as they track the emergence of a deadly new brain disease that first kills cannibals in new guinea, then cattle and young people in britain and france -- and that has already been traced to food animals in the united states. A new afterword assesses what needs to be done to prevent a fatal epidemic."an upton sinclair-ish look inside the modern meat industry....rhodes tells this medical detective story beautifully". -- john schwartz, the washington post [via]
More editions of Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague:
- Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague: ISBN 0684823608 (0-684-82360-8)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
via
The Demon in the Freezer
by Richard Preston

ISBN 0345466632 (0-345-46663-2)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Demon in the Freezer'
Book summary:
On December 9, 1979, smallpox, the most deadly human virus, ceased to exist in nature. After eradication, it was confined to freezers located in just two places on earth: the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and the Maximum Containment Laboratory in Siberia. But these final samples were not destroyed at that time, and now secret stockpiles of smallpox surely exist. For example, since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the subsequent end of its biological weapons program, a sizeable amount of the former Soviet Union's smallpox stockpile remains unaccounted for, leading to fears that the virus has fallen into the hands of nations or terrorist groups willing to use it as a weapon. Scarier yet, some may even be trying to develop a strain that is resistant to vaccines. This disturbing reality is the focus of this fascinating, terrifying, and important book.
A longtime contributor to The New Yorker and author of the bestseller The Hot Zone, Preston is a skillful journalist whose work flows like a science fiction thriller. Based on extensive interviews with smallpox experts, health workers, and members of the U.S. intelligence community, The Demon in the Freezer details the history and behavior of the virus and how it was eventually isolated and eradicated by the heroic individuals of the World Health Organization. Preston also explains why a battle still rages between those who want to destroy all known stocks of the virus and those who want to keep some samples alive until a cure is found. This is a bitterly contentious point between scientists. Some worry that further testing will trigger a biological arms race, while others argue that more research is necessary since there are currently too few available doses of the vaccine to deal with a major outbreak. The anthrax scare of October, 2001, which Preston also writes about in this book, has served to reinforce the present dangers of biological warfare.
As Preston eloquently states in this powerful book, this scourge, once contained, was let loose again due to human weakness: "The virus's last strategy for survival was to bewitch its host and become a source of power. We could eradicate smallpox from nature, but we could not uproot the virus from the human heart." --Shawn Carkonen [via]
More editions of The Demon in the Freezer:
- The Demon in the Freezer: ISBN 0345466632 (0-345-46663-2)
  Softcover, Ballantine Books
via
The Demon in the Freezer : A True Story
by Richard Preston

ISBN 0375508562 (0-375-50856-2)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Demon in the Freezer : A True Story'
Book summary:
On December 9, 1979, smallpox, the most deadly human virus, ceased to exist in nature. After eradication, it was confined to freezers located in just two places on earth: the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and the Maximum Containment Laboratory in Siberia. But these final samples were not destroyed at that time, and now secret stockpiles of smallpox surely exist. For example, since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the subsequent end of its biological weapons program, a sizeable amount of the former Soviet Union's smallpox stockpile remains unaccounted for, leading to fears that the virus has fallen into the hands of nations or terrorist groups willing to use it as a weapon. Scarier yet, some may even be trying to develop a strain that is resistant to vaccines. This disturbing reality is the focus of this fascinating, terrifying, and important book.
A longtime contributor to The New Yorker and author of the bestseller The Hot Zone, Preston is a skillful journalist whose work flows like a science fiction thriller. Based on extensive interviews with smallpox experts, health workers, and members of the U.S. intelligence community, The Demon in the Freezer details the history and behavior of the virus and how it was eventually isolated and eradicated by the heroic individuals of the World Health Organization. Preston also explains why a battle still rages between those who want to destroy all known stocks of the virus and those who want to keep some samples alive until a cure is found. This is a bitterly contentious point between scientists. Some worry that further testing will trigger a biological arms race, while others argue that more research is necessary since there are currently too few available doses of the vaccine to deal with a major outbreak. The anthrax scare of October, 2001, which Preston also writes about in this book, has served to reinforce the present dangers of biological warfare.
As Preston eloquently states in this powerful book, this scourge, once contained, was let loose again due to human weakness: "The virus's last strategy for survival was to bewitch its host and become a source of power. We could eradicate smallpox from nature, but we could not uproot the virus from the human heart." --Shawn Carkonen [via]
More editions of The Demon in the Freezer : A True Story:
- The Demon in the Freezer : A True Story: ISBN 0375508562 (0-375-50856-2)
  Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
Disease & History
by Frederick Fox Cartwright

ISBN 069024116X (0-690-24116-X)
Hardcover, Devin-Adair Pub

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Disease & History'
More editions of Disease & History:
- Disease & History: ISBN 069024116X (0-690-24116-X)
  Hardcover, Devin-Adair Pub
via
Disease and History

ISBN 0880296909 (0-88029-690-9)
Hardcover, Marboro Books

Find This Book

Book summary:
This volume traces the influence of disease on the civilizations, armies, and leaders that dominate history. They demonstrate that even the most powerful individuals and societies can be, and have been, fatally weakened by disease. [via]
More editions of Disease and History:
- Disease and History: ISBN 0880296909 (0-88029-690-9)
  Hardcover, Marboro Books
Disease and History
by Frederick F. Cartwright

ISBN 075093526X (0-7509-3526-X)
Softcover, Sutton Publishing, Limited

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Disease and History'
More editions of Disease and History:
- Disease and History: ISBN 075093526X (0-7509-3526-X)
  Softcover, Sutton Publishing, Limited
via
Fever 1793
by Laurie Halse Anderson

ISBN 0689848919 (0-689-84891-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Fever 1793'
Book summary:
On the heels of her acclaimed contemporary teen novel Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson surprises her fans with a riveting and well-researched historical fiction. Fever 1793 is based on an actual epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia that wiped out 5,000 people--or 10 percent of the city's population--in three months. At the close of the 18th century, Philadelphia was the bustling capital of the United States, with Washington and Jefferson in residence. During the hot mosquito-infested summer of 1793, the dreaded yellow fever spread like wildfire, killing people overnight. Like specters from the Middle Ages, gravediggers drew carts through the streets crying "Bring out your dead!" The rich fled to the country, abandoning the city to looters, forsaken corpses, and frightened survivors.
In the foreground of this story is 16-year-old Mattie Cook, whose mother and grandfather own a popular coffee house on High Street. Mattie's comfortable and interesting life is shattered by the epidemic, as her mother is felled and the girl and her grandfather must flee for their lives. Later, after much hardship and terror, they return to the deserted town to find their former cook, a freed slave, working with the African Free Society, an actual group who undertook to visit and assist the sick and saved many lives. As first frost arrives and the epidemic ends, Mattie's sufferings have changed her from a willful child to a strong, capable young woman able to manage her family's business on her own. (Ages 12 and older) --Patty Campbell [via]
More editions of Fever 1793:
- Fever 1793: ISBN 0689838581 (0-689-83858-1)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
- Fever 1793: ISBN 0689848919 (0-689-84891-9)
  Softcover, Simon & Schuster
via
Flu
by Gina Bari Kolata

ISBN 1417618019 (1-4176-1801-9)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Flu'
Book summary:
Feeling tired, achy, and congested? You'll hope not after reading science writer Gina Kolata's engrossing Flu, a fascinating look at the 1918 epidemic that wiped out around 40 million people in less than a year and afflicted more than one of every four Americans. This tragedy, just on the heels of World War I and far more deadly, so traumatized the survivors that few would talk about it afterward. Kolata reports on the scientific investigation of this bizarre outbreak, in particular the attempts to sequence the virus' DNA from tissue samples of victims. She also looks at the social and personal effects of the disease, from improved public health awareness to the loss of productivity. (The disease affected 20- to 40-year-olds disproportionately.)
How could this disease, now almost trivial to healthy young people, have become so virulent? The answer is complex, invoking epidemiology, immunology, and even psychology, but Kolata cuts a swath through medical papers and statistical reports to tell a story of an out-of-control virus exploiting an exhausted world on the brink of transition into modern society. Through letters, interviews, and news reports, she pieces together a cautionary tale that captures the horror of a devastating illness. Research marches onward, but we're still at the mercy of something as simple as the flu. --Rob Lightner [via]
More editions of Flu:
via
The Ghost Map
by Steven Johnson

ISBN 1594489254 (1-59448-925-4)
Hardcover, Riverhead Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ghost Map'
Book summary:
Steven Johnson, bestselling author of Everything Bad is Good for You, is fantastically gifted, and anyone who doubts it need only consider this: in The Ghost Map, Johnson manages to make filth, overpopulation, feces and death the cornerstones of one of the year's snappiest page-turners. On the simplest level, The Ghost Map is the true-life tale of the cholera scourge that slammed London in 1854 and the two passionate and whip-smart men who ferreted out its cause. But it's also a biography, a detective saga, a horror story, a history lesson, a sociological rumination on cities, an unlikely but gripping celebration of the modern sewer system and a vivid portrait of historic London life.
"London's underground market of scavenging had its own system of rank and privilege, and near the top were the night-soil men," Johnson observes. "Like the beloved chimney sweeps of Mary Poppins, the night-soil men worked as independent contractors at the very edge of the legitimate economy, though their labor was significantly more revolting than the foraging of the mud-larks and toshers.
"City landlords hired the men to remove the "night soil" from the overflowing cesspools of their buildings. The collecting of human excrement was a venerable occupation; in medieval times they were called rakers. [But] the work conditions could be deadly: in 1326, an ill-fated laborer by the name of Richard the Raker fell into a cesspool and literally drowned in human shit."
Nice. Clearly much more than just a dry recitation of data--though the depth of Johnson's research is obvious--The Ghost Map is a hair-raiser that cooks from page one. A big reason is Johnson's ability to personify and animate what he terms "the invisible kingdom of microscopic bacteria," transforming cholera into a nefarious three-dimensional villain with a role to play and zest for the part.

His work as biographer also impresses. Johnson gives us two protagonists all but forgotten by history who really should be feted: Dr. John Snow, who 150 years ago in an era of superstition and tenaciously held scientific notions, managed to work out the simple equation that excrement + drinking water = death. We also meet Reverend Henry Whitehead who similarly helped to crack the cholera riddle by flat-footing it through Soho, interviewing residents and survivors and eventually coming to believe that Snow was onto something with his water-borne disease theory. (The prevailing wisdom of the day held that disease was airborne and linked to smell).

It is no exaggeration to say that Snow's efforts changed the world. Ditto engineer Joseph Bazalgette, whose sprawling, visionary English sewer system Johnson likens in stature and scope to the Eiffel Tower and Brooklyn Bridge. The Ghost Map is a great, great book, stuffed with cool factoids and told by a writer so conversant in his topic that it plays like an exquisite yarn shared over friendly beers. --Kim Hughes [via]
More editions of The Ghost Map:
- The Ghost Map: ISBN 1594489254 (1-59448-925-4)
  Hardcover, Riverhead Books
The Great Influenza: The Story Of The Deadliest Pandemic In History
by John Barry

ISBN 0143036491 (0-14-303649-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Influenza: The Story Of The Deadliest Pandemic In History'
More editions of The Great Influenza: The Story Of The Deadliest Pandemic In History:
- The Great Influenza: The Story Of The Deadliest Pandemic In History: ISBN 0143036491 (0-14-303649-1)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
via
The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
by John M. Barry

ISBN 0143034480 (0-14-303448-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History'
Book summary:
No disease the world has ever known even remotely resembles the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Presumed to have begun when sick farm animals infected soldiers in Kansas, spreading and mutating into a lethal strain as troops carried it to Europe, it exploded across the world with unequaled ferocity and speed. It killed more people in twenty weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty years; it killed more people in a year than the plagues of the Middle Ages killed in a century. Victims bled from the ears and nose, turned blue from lack of oxygen, suffered aches that felt like bones being broken, and died. In the United States, where bodies were stacked without coffins on trucks, nearly seven times as many people died of influenza as in the First World War.
In his powerful new book, award-winning historian John M. Barry unfolds a tale that is magisterial in its breadth and in the depth of its research, and spellbinding as he weaves multiple narrative strands together. In this first great collision between science and epidemic disease, even as society approached collapse, a handful of heroic researchers stepped forward, risking their lives to confront this strange disease. Titans like William Welch at the newly formed Johns Hopkins Medical School and colleagues at Rockefeller University and others from around the country revolutionized American science and public health, and their work in this crisis led to crucial discoveries that we are still using and learning from today.
The Washington Posts Jonathan Yardley said Barrys last book can "change the way we think." The Great Influenza may also change the way we see the world. [via]
More editions of The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History:
- The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History: ISBN 0670894737 (0-670-89473-7)
  Hardcover, Viking Pr
- The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History: ISBN 0143034480 (0-14-303448-0)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
via
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time
by John Kelly

ISBN 0060006935 (0-06-000693-5)
Softcover, Perennial

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time'
Book summary:
A book chronicling one of the worst human disasters in recorded history really has no business being entertaining. But John Kelly's The Great Mortality is a page-turner despite its grim subject matter and graphic detail. Credit Kelly's animated prose and uncanny ability to drop his reader smack in the middle of the 14th century, as a heretofore unknown menace stalks Eurasia from "from the China Sea to the sleepy fishing villages of coastal Portugal [producing] suffering and death on a scale that, even after two world wars and twenty-seven million AIDS deaths worldwide, remains astonishing." Take Kelly's vivid description of London in the fall of 1348: "A nighttime walk across Medieval London would probably take only twenty minutes or so, but traversing the daytime city was a different matter.... Imagine a shopping mall where everyone shouts, no one washes, front teeth are uncommon and the shopping music is provided by the slaughterhouse up the road." Yikes, and that's before just about everything with a pulse starts dying and piling up in the streets, reducing the population of Europe by anywhere from a third to 60 percent in a few short years. In addition to taking readers on a walking tour through plague-ravaged Europe, Kelly heaps on the ancillary information and every last bit of it is captivating. We get a thorough breakdown of the three types of plagues that prey on humans; a detailed account of how the plague traveled from nation to nation (initially by boat via flea-infested rats); how floods (and the appalling hygiene of medieval people) made Europe so susceptible to the disease; how the plague triggered a new social hierarchy favouring women and the proletariat but also sparked vicious anti-Semitism; and especially, how the plague forever changed the way people viewed the church. Engrossing, accessible, and brimming with first-hand accounts drawn from the Middle Ages, The Great Mortality illuminates and inspires. History just doesn't get better than that. --Kim Hughes [via]
More editions of The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time:
- The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time: ISBN 0060006927 (0-06-000692-7)
  Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
- The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time: ISBN 0060006935 (0-06-000693-5)
  Softcover, Perennial
via
Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond

ISBN 0393317552 (0-393-31755-2)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies'
Book summary:
With a new chapter. The phenomenal bestseller; over 1.5 million copies sold; is now a major PBS special.Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the television series. Until around 11,000 BC, all peoples were still Stone Age hunter/gatherers. At that point, a great divide occurred in the rates that human societies evolved. In Eurasia, parts of the Americas, and Africa, farming became the prevailing mode of existence when indigenous wild plants and animals were domesticated by prehistoric planters and herders. As Jared Diamond vividly reveals, the very people who gained a head start in producing food would collide with preliterate cultures, shaping the modern world through conquest, displacement, and genocide.The paths that lead from scattered centers of food to broad bands of settlement had a great deal to do with climate and geography. But how did differences in societies arise? Why weren't native Australians, Americans, or Africans the ones to colonize Europe? Diamond dismantles pernicious racial theories tracing societal differences to biological differences. He assembles convincing evidence linking germs to domestication of animals, germs that Eurasians then spread in epidemic proportions in their voyages of discovery. In its sweep, Guns, Germs and Steel encompasses the rise of agriculture, technology, writing, government, and religion, providing a unifying theory of human history as intriguing as the histories of dinosaurs and glaciers. 32 illustrations [via]
More editions of Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies:
via
Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companion
by Jared Diamond

ISBN 1586638637 (1-58663-863-7)
Softcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companion'
Book summary:
Scholar and professor Jared Diamond made a huge splash with this fascinating but controversial book, which argues that geography and environment have almost singlehandedly determined the course of human history. Dig deeper into his contentions with the information inside this invaluable reader's handbook:
- Why did Europe colonize Africa and Asia rather than the other way around?
- Why is geography the most important factor in human history?
- How has the rest of the scientific community received Diamond's theory?
[via]
More editions of Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companion:
- Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companion: ISBN 1586638637 (1-58663-863-7)
  Softcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc
via
The Hot Zone
by Richard Preston

ISBN 1568952058 (1-56895-205-8)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hot Zone'
Book summary:
A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic "hot" virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their "crashes" into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction. [via]
More editions of The Hot Zone:
via
In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made
by Norman Cantor

ISBN 0060014342 (0-06-001434-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made'
Book summary:
One-third of Western Europe's population died between 1348 and 1350, victims of the Black Death. Noted medievalist Norman Cantor tells the story of the pandemic and its widespread effects in In the Wake of the Plague.
After giving an overview, Cantor describes various theories about the medical crisis, from contemporary fears of a Jewish conspiracy to poison the water (and the resulting atrocities against European Jews) to a growing belief among modern historians that both bubonic plague and anthrax caused the spiraling death rates. Cantor also details ways in which the Black Death changed history, at both the personal level (family lines dying out) and the political (the Plantagenet kings may well have been able to hold onto France had their resources not been so diminished).
Cantor veers from topic to topic, from dynastic worries to the Dance of Death, and from peasants' rights to Perpendicular Gothic. This makes for amusing reading, though those seeking an orderly narrative may be frustrated. He also seems overly concerned with rumors of homosexual behavior, and his attempt to link the savage method of Edward II's murder to a cooling in global weather is a bit farfetched.
Cantor wears his considerable scholarship lightly, but includes a very useful critical biography for further reading. While not an entry-level text on the Black Death, In the Wake of the Plague will interest readers looking for a broader interpretation of its consequences. --Sunny Delaney [via]
More editions of In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made:
via
Journal of the Plague Year
by Daniel Defoe

ISBN 1419101803 (1-4191-0180-3)
Softcover, Kessinger Pub Co

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Journal Of The Plague Year'
Book summary:
In 1665, the Great Plague swept through London, claiming nearly 100,000 lives. In A Journal of the Plague Year, Defoe vividly chronicles the progress of the epidemic. We follow his fictional narrator through a city transformed-the streets and alleyways deserted, the houses of death with crosses daubed on their doors, the dead-carts on their way to the pits-and encounter the horrified citizens of the city, as fear, isolation, and hysteria take hold. The shocking immediacy of Defoe's description of plague-racked London makes this one of the most convincing accounts of the Great Plague ever written.

[via]
More editions of Journal of the Plague Year:
via
A Journal of the Plague Year
by Paula R. Backscheider

ISBN 0393961885 (0-393-96188-5)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Journal of the Plague Year'
Book summary:
This Norton Critical Edition of one of Defoes most important works reprints the 1722 text, the only edition published in Defoes lifetime.
The authoritative text has been fully annotated and makes available a perennially popular novel, one that has often been mistaken for an actual eyewitness account of the last great plague in England.

"Backgrounds" encourages comparison of 1665 documents with those of the early 1720s, when England feared a new outbreak of the plague.

Included are official government orders and newspaper accounts as well as writings by Defoe, John Graunt, the College of Physicians, and others.

"Contexts" includes eight comparative pieces united by the theme of a community in crisis.

From Thucydides to Boccaccio to modern accounts by Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, and Susan Sontag, this collection represents some of the most celebrated observers and critics in western civilization who have seen what plagues reveal about human nature.

"Criticism" reprints seven of the best essays on the novel, including interpretations by Sir Walter Scott, Maximillian E. Novak, John J. Richetti, and John Bender, among others.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included. [via]
More editions of A Journal of the Plague Year:
- A Journal of the Plague Year: ISBN 0393961885 (0-393-96188-5)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
A Journal of the Plague Year: Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London
by Daniel Defoe

ISBN 0760752370 (0-7607-5237-0)
Softcover, Barnes & Noble

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Journal of the Plague Year: Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London'
More editions of A Journal of the Plague Year: Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London:
- A Journal of the Plague Year: Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London: ISBN 0760752370 (0-7607-5237-0)
  Softcover, Barnes & Noble
via
LA Peste
by Albert Camus

ISBN 2070360423 (2-07-036042-3)
Softcover, Gallimard

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'LA Peste'
Book summary:
La Peste est un roman dAlbert Camus publié en 1947 qui permit en partie à son auteur de remporter le prix Nobel en 1957. Il a pour théâtre Oran durant la période de lAlgérie française. Lhistoire se déroule dans les années 1940. Le roman raconte sous forme de chronique la vie quotidienne des habitants de la ville pendant une épidémie de peste qui frappe la ville et la coupe du monde extérieur. [via]
More editions of LA Peste:
via
Phenomenological Psychology
by E. Husserl

ISBN 902471978X (90-247-1978-X)
Softcover, Kluwer Academic Pub

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Phenomenological Psychology'
More editions of Phenomenological Psychology:
- Phenomenological Psychology: ISBN 902471978X (90-247-1978-X)
  Softcover, Kluwer Academic Pub
via
The Plague
by Albert Camus, Stuart Gilbert

ISBN 0075536498 (0-07-553649-8)
Softcover, McGraw-Hill College

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Plague'
Book summary:
The Nobel prize-winning Albert Camus, who died in 1960, could not have known how grimly current his existentialist novel of epidemic and death would remain. Set in Algeria, in northern Africa, The Plague is a powerful study of human life and its meaning in the face of a deadly virus that sweeps dispassionately through the city, taking a vast percentage of the population with it. [via]
More editions of The Plague:
via
Plagues and Peoples
by William H. McNeill

ISBN 0385121229 (0-385-12122-9)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Plagues and Peoples'
Book summary:
This study describes the dramatic impact of infectious diseases on the rise and fall of civilizations. Plague demoralized the Athenian Army during war, and ravaged the Roman Empire. In the 16th century smallpox was the decisive agent that allowed Cortez with only 600 men to conquer the Aztec Empire, whose subjects numbered millions. As recently as 1918-19, an epidemic of influenza claimed 21 million victims and seemed to threaten civilization itself. Diseases such as syphilis, cholera, smallpox and malaria have been devastating to humanity for centuries. This book, through an impressive accumulation of evidence, demonstrates the central role of pestilence in human affairs and the extent to which it has changed the course of history. [via]
More editions of Plagues and Peoples:
Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82
by Elizabeth A. Fenn

ISBN 080907821X (0-8090-7821-X)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82'
Book summary:
The astonishing, hitherto unknown truths about a disease that transformed the United States at its birth

A horrifying epidemic of smallpox was sweeping across the Americas when the War of Independence began, and yet we know almost nothing about it. Elizabeth A. Fenn is the first historian to reveal how deeply variola affected the outcome of the war in every colony and the lives of everyone in North America.

By 1776, when military action and political ferment increased the movement of people and microbes, the epidemic worsened. Fenn's remarkable research shows us how smallpox devastated the American troops at Québec and kept them at bay during the British occupation of Boston. Soon the disease affected the war in Virginia, where it ravaged slaves who had escaped to join the British forces. During the terrible winter at Valley Forge, General Washington had to decide if and when to attempt the risky inoculation of his troops. In 1779, while Creeks and Cherokees were dying in Georgia, smallpox broke out in Mexico City, whence it followed travelers going north, striking Santa Fe and outlying pueblos in January 1781. Simultaneously it moved up the Pacific coast and east across the plains as far as Hudson's Bay.

The destructive, desolating power of smallpox made for a cascade of public-helath crises and heartbreaking human drama. Fenn's innovative work shows how this mega-tragedy was met and what its consequences were for America.
[via]
More editions of Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82:
- Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82: ISBN 0809078201 (0-8090-7820-1)
  Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82: ISBN 080907821X (0-8090-7821-X)
  Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
Rats, Lice and History: Being a Study in Biography, Which, After Twelve Preliminary Chapters Indispensable for the Preparation of the Lay Reader, De
by Hans Zinsser

ISBN 0316988960 (0-316-98896-0)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Rats, Lice and History: Being a Study in Biography, Which, After Twelve Preliminary Chapters Indispensable for the Preparation of the Lay Reader, De'
Book summary:
When Rats, Lice and History appeared in 1935, Hans Zinsser was a highly regarded Harvard biologist who had never written about historical events. Although he had published under a pseudonym, virtually all of his previous writings had dealt with infections and immunity and had appeared either in medical and scientific journals or in book format. Today he is best remembered as the author of Rats, Lice, and History, which gone through multiple editions and remains a masterpiece of science writing for a general readership.

To Zinsser, scientific research was high adventure and the investigation of infectious disease, a field of battle. Yet at the same time he maintained a love of literature and philosophy. His goal in Rats, Lice and History was to bring science, philosophy, and literature together to establish the importance of disease, and especially epidemic infectious disease, as a major force in human affairs. Zinsser cast his work as the "biography" of a disease. In his view, infectious disease simply represented an attempt of a living organism to survive. From a human perspective, an invading pathogen was abnormal; from the perspective of the pathogen it was perfectly normal.

This book is devoted to a discussion of the biology of typhus and history of typhus fever in human affairs. Zinsser begins by pointing out that the louse was the constant companion of human beings. Under certain conditionsto wash or to change clothinglice proliferated. The typhus pathogen was transmitted by rat fleas to human beings, who then transmitted it to other humans and in some strains from human to human.

Rats, Lice and History is a tour de force. It combines Zinsser's expertise in biology with his broad knowledge of the humanities
[via]
More editions of Rats, Lice and History: Being a Study in Biography, Which, After Twelve Preliminary Chapters Indispensable for the Preparation of the Lay Reader, De:
- Rats, Lice, & History: Being a Study in Biography, Which, after Twelve Preliminary Chapters Indispensable for the Preparation of the Lay Reader, Deals with the Life History of Typhus Fever ..: ISBN 0333395670 (0-333-39567-0)
  Hardcover, Papermac
- Rats, Lice and History: Being a Study in Biography, Which, After Twelve Preliminary Chapters Indispensable for the Preparation of the Lay Reader, De: ISBN 0316988960 (0-316-98896-0)
  Softcover, Little Brown & Co
via
Rats, Lice and History: A Chronicle of Disease, Plagues, and Pestilence
by Hans Zinsser

ISBN 1884822479 (1-884822-47-9)
Hardcover, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Incorporated

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Rats, Lice and History: A Chronicle of Disease, Plagues, and Pestilence'
Book summary:
The classic chronicle of the impact disease and plagues have had on history and society over the past half-millennium. Intriguingly fascinating and entertaining reading for anyone who is interested in how society copes with catastrophe and pain. Relevant today in face of the worldwide medical calamity of AIDS. Continuously in print since its first publication in 1934, with over 75 printings. [via]
More editions of Rats, Lice and History: A Chronicle of Disease, Plagues, and Pestilence:
- Rats, Lice and History: A Chronicle of Disease, Plagues, and Pestilence: ISBN 1884822479 (1-884822-47-9)
  Hardcover, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Incorporated
via
Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox
by Jonathan B. Tucker

ISBN 0802139396 (0-8021-3939-6)
Softcover, Grove Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox'
Book summary:
A Washington Post Best Book of 2001, Scourge provides a definitive account of the dramatic story of smallpox by a leading "expert on biological and chemical weapons" (The New York Times). Jonathan B. Tucker traces the history of the smallpox virus from its first recorded outbreak around 3700 B.C. through its use as the first biological warfare agent in human history, and draws some decisively important lessons for the future. In a timely debate, Tucker addresses the ever-growing concerns about the proliferation of the deadly smallpox virus and its use by terrorist organizations. Explaining how the eradication of the disease in the late 1970s encouraged military research and production of the virus, he exposes the failure of the Russian government to secure its remaining cold-war stockpiles, and evaluates the past and present measures undertaken by the United States to counter the existing dangers of a smallpox attack. Ultimately, he passionately argues for the strengthening of the existing legal ban on the development and possession of biological weapons. Impeccably researched, Scourge is as arresting as it is indispensable, and as William Beatty in Booklist raves, Tucker "has a sense of ... history that helps him make the story of smallpox as disease and ... weapon fascinating and frightening." Scourge has been acclaimed as "a concise, suspenseful and scientifically accurate narrative." -- The New York Times Book Review" Tucker's fascinating, revealing book affords the reader a sobering look at this new type of warfare...." -- Chris Patsilelis, Houston Chronicle -- "[Tucker] reports the debate evenhandedly and with telling detail." -- David Brown, The Washington Post Book World
[via]
More editions of Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox:
- Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox: ISBN 0871138301 (0-87113-830-1)
  Hardcover, Atlantic Monthly Pr
- Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox: ISBN 0802139396 (0-8021-3939-6)
  Softcover, Grove Pr
via
The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox
by Jennifer Lee Carrell

ISBN 0452285070 (0-452-28507-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox'
Book summary:
History s first desperate efforts to conquer the spotted beast of smallpox. The dramatic story of 2 parents who dared to fight back against the disease. After barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, they both flouted 18th-cent. Eur. med. tradition by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves & Eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children. From their heroic struggles stems the modern science of immunology as well as the vaccinations should the disease ever be unleashed again. Carrell transports readers back to the early 20th-cent. to tell the tales of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu & Dr. Zabdiel Boylston: two iconoclastic figures who helped save the cities of London & Boston from the deadliest disease mankind has known. Illus. [via]
More editions of The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox:
via
The Stand
by Stephen King

ISBN 0385121687 (0-385-12168-7)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Stand'
Book summary:
In 1978, science fiction writer Spider Robinson wrote a scathing review of The Stand in which he exhorted his readers to grab strangers in bookstores and beg them not to buy it.
The Stand is like that. You either love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. Stephen King's most popular book, according to polls of his fans, is an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99 and 44/100 percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil.
"I love to burn things up," King says. "It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... The Stand was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on The Stand came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke."
There is much to admire in The Stand: the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath. Anyone who wants to know, or claims to know, the heart of the American experience needs to read this book. --Fiona Webster [via]
More editions of The Stand:
- The Stand: ISBN 0385121687 (0-385-12168-7)
  Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
via
The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition
by Stephen King

ISBN 1568495714 (1-56849-571-4)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition'
Book summary:
In 1978, science fiction writer Spider Robinson wrote a scathing review of The Stand in which he exhorted his readers to grab strangers in bookstores and beg them not to buy it.
The Stand is like that. You either love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. Stephen King's most popular book, according to polls of his fans, is an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99 and 44/100 percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil.
"I love to burn things up," King says. "It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... The Stand was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on The Stand came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke."
There is much to admire in The Stand: the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath. Anyone who wants to know, or claims to know, the heart of the American experience needs to read this book. --Fiona Webster [via]
More editions of The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition:
Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical
by Anthony Bourdain, Breaulove Swells Whimsy

ISBN 1582341338 (1-58234-133-8)
Hardcover, Bloomsbury Publishing

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical'
More editions of Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical:
- Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical: ISBN 0756779561 (0-7567-7956-1)
  Hardcover, Diane Pub Co
- Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical: ISBN 1582341338 (1-58234-133-8)
  Hardcover, Bloomsbury Publishing
via
Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague
by Geraldine Brooks

ISBN 067091021X (0-670-91021-X)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Year of Wonders : A Novel of the Plague'
Book summary:
Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders describes the 17th-century plague that is carried from London to a small Derbyshire village by an itinerant tailor. As villagers begin, one by one, to die, the rest face a choice: do they flee their village in hope of outrunning the plague or do they stay? The lord of the manor and his family pack up and leave. The rector, Michael Mompellion, argues forcefully that the villagers should stay put, isolate themselves from neighboring towns and villages, and prevent the contagion from spreading. His oratory wins the day and the village turns in on itself. Cocooned from the outside world and ravaged by the disease, its inhabitants struggle to retain their humanity in the face of the disaster. The narrator, the young widow Anna Frith, is one of the few who succeeds. With Mompellion and his wife, Elinor, she tends to the dying and battles to prevent her fellow villagers from descending into drink, violence, and superstition. All is complicated by the intense, inexpressible feelings she develops for both the rector and his wife. Year of Wonders sometimes seems anachronistic as historical fiction; Anna and Mompellion occasionally appear to be modern sensibilities unaccountably transferred to 17th-century Derbyshire. However, there is no mistaking the power of Brooks's imagination or the skill with which she constructs her story of ordinary people struggling to cope with extraordinary circumstances. --Nick Rennison, Amazon.co.uk [via]
More editions of Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague:
- Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague: ISBN 0783896824 (0-7838-9682-4)
  Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
- Year of Wonders : A Novel of the Plague: ISBN 067091021X (0-670-91021-X)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated