Cliquer sur une vignette pour aller sur Google Books.
Chargement... Rats, Lice and Historypar Hans Zinsser
Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. Published in 1944, Zinsser leads you through his avenues of interest (research) in hunt of an understanding of Typhus - he christens the endeavor a biography. Splendid. This is the style of book I want to read (well, minus the side comments on the worth of women and other races/ethnicities). --- Chapter X: More about the louse: the need for this chapter will be apparent to those who have entered into the spirit of this biography Typhus is not dead. It will live on for centuries, and it will continue to break into the open whenever human stupidity and brutality give it a chance. I must note this as one of my favorite books ever, not because of its content (though I'm a sucker for plagues), but because of Zinsser's voice and narrative style. This was the first book I read where I noticed the author's effort to communicate his passion, and felt addressed across the decades. I've begun more than one deep friendship based only on our relationship to this book, and to my mind, that is the highest recommendation I can make. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
Appartient à la série éditorialeDistinctions
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 conditions-to wash or to change clothing-lice 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 Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires
Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)614.5262Technology Medicine and health Public Health Contagious and infectious diseases: special Exanthemata TyphusClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
Est-ce vous ?Devenez un(e) auteur LibraryThing. |
History is interesting when it involves science and philosophy, literature and art, common people and their lives. ( )