I meant to post this earlier, but I'm finally getting around to it now: Ghost Map was picked as one of Entertainment Weekly's ten best non-fiction books of the year:
Part 1 of Johnson's historical reconstruction is a minutely detailed account of London's cholera epidemic of 1854 and an eccentric physician's effort to map the outbreak and track its source. Part 2 is a thought-provoking celebration of cities and a meditation on the spread of ideas. The result: a riveting work that makes you give thanks for modern plumbing — and rethink your pessimism about urban sprawl.
Apparently we also made best-of-the-year lists at Library Journal, Playboy, and a few others I think, plus the NY Times Notable Books list. So that's all very cool.
Steven,
I watched with great interest over the weekend you appearance on your new book. I'm glad to see that you think it might be an extension of Emergence since I've been waiting for something like that. What happened to the mapping of the brain by the way?
I'm presently trying to write something about education and I would like to see you turn your attention to some day.
To reform the high school I'm trying to tie Heewong Chang's (an ethnographer)three motivations of the high school student - Be involved, be independent and get along with everyone. There appears, of course a disconnect of purposes, because the teachers direction is to "Cover the material"(Palmer)
This apparent disconnect to me can only be reconciled by developing a de-centralized, bottom up system in which the student becomes a full partner in the process, rather than an indifferent by-stander.The rules you mentioned for an emegent system could be incorporated into a reformed High School with no main ant calling the shots. But a balance that evolves in the educational community. Emergence of the new high school.
Ihave tried to put it all together and failed miserably,- Chang(Ethnology of the American High School student), Johnson, Hyne(the rise and fall of the American teenager)yet I know that the seeds of a real reform in high school will not come, for instance, frim the Gates foundation, not from any amount of new money and not from machines. It has to come from each classroom with a profound change in the roles of student and teacher within a system that emerges in a decentralized fashion.
Emergence was a facinating book!_ John
Posted by: John Jacobs | January 22, 2007 at 12:04 PM
Wonderful book; very interesting to me as four of my family died of cholora in 1854, in Whitechapel, London. I rushed round to Soho to look at the areas covered in THE GHOST MAP but much has changed.
Posted by: David Cartwright | January 23, 2007 at 04:35 AM
I was given The Ghost Map for Christmas and it was the first book I've read for a long time that I couldn't put down. I find the way you link phenomena occurring at different scales (bacteria, human bodies, streets, cities) fascinating, and your writing is always engaging and beautifully clear. Congratulations on making Entertainment Weekly's list; it's well deserved.
Posted by: patroclus | February 12, 2007 at 10:21 AM
nice :)
;))
Posted by: gestibar | February 13, 2007 at 02:10 AM
Zaporozhye Go
http://www.algol.zp.ua
http://www.list.ru
Posted by: FRANK | February 24, 2007 at 12:01 AM