Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Book Summary and Reviews of The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

The Ghost Map

The Story of London's Deadliest Epidemic - and How It Changed the Way We Think about Disease, Cities, Science, and the Modern World

by Steven Johnson

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • Published:
  • Oct 2006, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Summer 1854. A devastating cholera outbreak seizes London just as it is emerging as a modern city: more than 2 million people packed into a ten-mile circumference, a hub of travel and commerce, teeming with people from all over the world, continually pushing the limits of infrastructure that's outdated as soon as it's updated.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Starred Review: "This makes for an illuminating and satisfying read." - PW.
"Lively and educative" - Kirkus.

This information about The Ghost Map was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Lynn

Science that reads like a thriller
I really surprised myself by finding this book to be so readable. I tried to imagine the fear of the times to contract a disease that you were fully aware would kill you within a day of coming down with the symptoms. It was so easy for the incurious experts to determine the cause of the disease would also put all the blame on the poor and their environment. Once the curious of scientific and care-taking minds got involved, the obvious answer was found with an easy solution to save thousands. It still took another devastating outbreak and decades before people got behind the correct cause and solution. I enjoyed reading about the people involved and felt that the book kept my interest up from beginning to . . . almost end. I did not find the last chapter to be as well written as the rest of the book.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Steven Johnson Author Biography

Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of ten books, including How We Got to Now, Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, and Everything Bad Is Good for You. The founder of a variety of influential websites, he is the host and co-creator of the PBS and BBC series How We Got to Now. Johnson lives in Marin County, California, and Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and three sons.

Link to Steven Johnson's Website

Other books by Steven Johnson at BookBrowse
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Ghost Map, try these:

  • The Submission jacket

    The Submission

    by Amy Waldman

    Published 2012

    About this book

    Ten years after 9/11, a dazzling, kaleidoscopic novel reimagines its aftermath and wonders what would happen if a Muslim-American was blindly chosen to plan the World Trade Center Memorial.

  • Collapse jacket

    Collapse

    by Jared Diamond

    Published 2006

    About this book

    Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?

  • The Great Unraveling jacket

    The Great Unraveling

    by Paul Krugman

    Published 2004

    About this book

    A galvanizing new work from America's leading economic critic—a book that will set the terms of the political debate for years to come.

We have 4 read-alikes for The Ghost Map, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

More History, Current Affairs and Religion

Browse all History, Current Affairs and Religion books

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!
Win This Book
Win Theo of Golden

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…

Enter

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
A Pair of Aces
by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
Two women on opposite sides of the law team up to bring down gangster Lucky Luciano in this gripping novel.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Somebody Worth Killing
    by Jessica Payne
    Meet Nadia Davis, loving mom, devoted wife, secret assassin… and she needs a babysitter.
  • Book Jacket
    Summer's Never Over
    by Darby Bozeman
    A woman revisits a Southern summer camp where a counselor's death may not have been an accident.
  • Book Jacket
    The Reimagining of Thornwood House
    by Jaleigh Johnson
    A witch and her ward discover a magical walking house and find the true meaning of home.
  • Book Jacket
    Feast
    by Catherine Kurtz
    In 19th-century France, a girl with a magical taste becomes a duc’s poison taster amid nobility and danger.
Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

S the B

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.