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Published Jul 2021
416 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley have been researching quarantine since long before the COVID-19 pandemic. With Until Proven Safe, they bring us a book as compelling as it is definitive, not only urgent reading for social-distanced times but also an up-to-the-minute investigation of the interplay of forces––biological, political, technological––that shape our modern world.
Quarantine is our most powerful response to uncertainty: it means waiting to see if something hidden inside us will be revealed. It is also one of our most dangerous, operating through an assumption of guilt. In quarantine, we are considered infectious until proven safe.
Until Proven Safe tracks the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space―from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean, built to contain the Black Death, to an experimental Ebola unit in London, and from the hallways of the CDC to closed-door simulations where pharmaceutical execs and epidemiologists prepare for the outbreak of a novel coronavirus.
But the story of quarantine ranges far beyond the history of medical isolation. In Until Proven Safe, the authors tour a nuclear-waste isolation facility beneath the New Mexican desert, see plants stricken with a disease that threatens the world's wheat supply, and meet NASA's Planetary Protection Officer, tasked with saving Earth from extraterrestrial infections. They also introduce us to the corporate tech giants hoping to revolutionize quarantine through surveillance and algorithmic prediction.
We live in a disorienting historical moment that can feel both unprecedented and inevitable; Until Proven Safe helps us make sense of our new reality through a thrillingly reported, thought-provoking exploration of the meaning of freedom, governance, and mutual responsibility.
"[A] riveting and timely look at how humanity has protected itself by isolating segments of its populations...Manaugh and Twilley cull their research into a concise and logical series of recommendations for future public health crises...This thoughtful study couldn't arrive at a better moment." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A captivating survey of the uses and abuses of quarantines, from the days of the Black Death to the lockdowns of Covid-19...An infectiously appealing overview of efforts to contain the potentially infectious." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"An informative account for readers interested in public health's impact on historical and current practices in medicine and science." - Library Journal
"An engrossing study of the ways in which quarantines have changed social, emotional, and political life over hundreds of years, and a fascinating exploration of the perennial roles of fear, conspiracy theories, greed, and prejudice, to which we now add the threat of permanent digital surveillance in the name of public health. Perfect for our time and guidance for the future." - Ellen Ullman, author of Close to the Machine and, most recently, Life in Code
"As Twilley and Manaugh reveal in this timely but timeless, ambitious and flawlessly executed account, quarantines have shaped our history―shifting geopolitical boundaries, fomenting racial hatreds, facilitating authoritarian control. The struggle to protect ourselves from invisible and deadly contagions is waged daily and largely out of sight―along borders and spore superhighways, in biosecure piggeries and nuclear waste facilities a half-mile underground. Quarantine: boring to live through, unbelievably interesting to read about." - Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Grunt
"Until Proven Safe is the book of our historical moment―a provocative meditation on how society uses quarantine to define the boundaries of self and other when faced with the terrifying unknown. Startlingly timely, authoritatively researched, and electrifyingly written." - Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
This information about Until Proven Safe 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.
Nicola Twilley is co-host of the award-winning podcast Gastropod, which looks at food through the lens of history and science, and an award-winning contributor to the New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles.
Geoff Manaugh is the author of the New York Times-bestseller A Burglar's Guide to the City, as well as the architecture and technology website BLDGBLOG. He regularly writes for the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, Wired, and many other publications. He lives in Los Angeles.
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