Book Summary and Reviews of Diseases Without Borders by Marc Zimmer

Diseases Without Borders by Marc Zimmer

Diseases Without Borders

Plagues, Pandemics, and Beyond

by Marc Zimmer

  • Critics' Consensus (2):
  • Published:
  • Apr 2026, 120 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From the infamous Black Death to the 1918 flu to COVID-19, disease outbreaks have always marked human history.

But where they spread, how they spread, and how fast they move have all changed. As humans became more mobile, started trading goods and information across the globe, built bigger cities, increased their greenhouse gas emissions, and had more contact with wildlife and farm animals, disease began to spread easier and faster than ever before. At the same time, humans got better at preventing and combating outbreaks. But no prevention or treatment is perfect for every disease. When new outbreaks occur, people have to work together to figure out what causes the disease, how to prevent its spread, and how to treat it.

In Diseases Without Borders, explore several major diseases that have crossed international borders throughout time, including their causes, symptoms, treatments, and modern status, and what major factors contribute to their spread. Then consider an important question: What can we learn from the past and present to help predict and contain diseases in the future?

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"An exceptionally clear and inspiring resource combining a human-centered narrative with compelling science." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"This would make a satisfying complementary piece for a social sciences or humanities class and is worthwhile investment for a library." ―School Library Journal

This information about Diseases Without Borders 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.

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Author Information

Marc Zimmer

Marc Zimmer is the author of several nonfiction young adult books and a professor at Connecticut College, where he teaches chemistry and studies the proteins involved in producing light in jellyfish and fireflies. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and did his post-doc at Yale University. He has published articles on science and medicine for the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the Huffington Post, among many other publications. He lives in Waterford, Connecticut, with his wife, their two children, and a genetically modified fluorescent mouse named Prometheus.

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