A disturbing report of the current global crisis of new and resurgent diseases. This account investigates how and why diseases such as AIDS, legionnaires' disease, ebola, TB, and new forms of cholera and malaria occur. Karlen charts humanity's relationship with microbes, from the earliest hominids' probable encounters with bubonic plague, to the spread of infections through trade, conquest and empire, to the problems awaiting the human race in the near future. Using research from the fields of genetics, virology and epidemiology, he concludes that today's epidemics are part of an ancient pattern: whenever people make radical changes in their lifestyle and environment, disease flourishes.
- ISBN10 0575400129
- ISBN13 9780575400122
- Publish Date 25 July 1996 (first published 17 August 1995)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 28 March 2001
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Orion Publishing Co
- Imprint Orion
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 272
- Language English