The Ghost Map

I’ve been reading Steven Johnson for a while now. It started with Feed on the web in the mid 90s and progressed with his books, most notably Emergence and Everything Bad Is Good For You.

But as I told Steven last week, The Ghost Map is his best yet. If you haven’t heard of it, its a story about the cholera epidemic that hit the Soho neighborhood in London in 1854. And its a great story with victims and protaganists. The kind of story you can’t put down because you want to know how it ends

But woven into the story is a textbook on cholera, microbes, biology, society, urbanization, epidemics, sewers and cesspools, and much more.

It is the way I love to learn. by stories that mean something as opposed to dry textbooks or lectures that put me to sleep.

If you are fascinated by technology and its impact on society, you should read this book.

It’s great.