Pandemic

In Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, From Cholera to Coronaviruses and Beyond, prizewinning science journalist Sonia Shah presents a startling examination of the pandemics that have ravaged humanity-and how history prepares us to confront the most serious acute global health emergency of our time.

Interweaving history, original reportage, and personal narrative, Shah draws parallels between cholera, one of history’s most deadly pandemic-causing pathogens, and the new diseases that stalk humankind today.

To reveal how a new pandemic might develop, Shah tracks each stage of cholera’s dramatic journey. Along the way she reports on the pathogens now following in its footsteps, from the MRSA bacterium that besieges her own family to the never-before-seen killers coming out of China’s wet markets, the surgical wards of New Delhi, and the suburban backyards of the East Coast.

Delving into the convoluted science, strange politics, and checkered history of one of the world’s deadliest diseases, Pandemic is a work of epidemiological history like no other, with urgent lessons for today.