Harper’s long-view study is a welcome addition to the spate of recent books on epidemic disease.
A survey of infectious disease as an agent in shaping human history.
In a well-conceived, somewhat overlong example of what the renowned biologist E.O. Wilson calls consilience, classics professor Harper combs through the literature of history, economics, epidemiology, and other disciplines to deliver a solid study of the role of infectious disease in the human story. “The dominance of Homo sapiens over its microbial enemies is astonishingly recent,” he writes. Until the 19th century, most people died of microbial diseases such as the bubonic plague and cholera, and only when societies set aside other priorities and performed such collective enterprises as draining swamps and installing sewers did the death toll fall and human life extend past 35 or so. Those mortality patterns, Harper writes, have a chicken-and-egg aspect. By enhancing human capital with workers who don’t die before they’ve mastered their trades, they add wealth to society, and adding wealth provides the wherewithal to combat diseases and augment human capital. Harper writes appreciatively of what has been called the “Great Escape,” by which human societies have thus unhooked themselves from the devastating effects of plague—though plague always manages to sneak back into the picture, as the recent pandemic has demonstrated. The author turns up intriguing tidbits in his travels through the literature, such as the fact that humans are unusually susceptible to viruses that seem to have evolved specifically to target us. “Our chimpanzee cousins,” he writes, “who live in the jungle, eat raw monkey for breakfast, never bathe, and make a habit of chewing on their own feces, endure only a fraction of the viral diversity that we do.” Harper ventures that we may in fact be weaker by virtue of having tamed so many epidemic diseases. Interestingly, he also locates the origins of many public health practices of today in the Middle Ages through institutions that grew as urban centers did.
Harper’s long-view study is a welcome addition to the spate of recent books on epidemic disease.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-691-19212-3
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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