Germs, Genes, & Civilization: How Epidemics Shaped Who We Are Today

by David P. Clark

• ASIN: B0032BW5CK
• Publish Date: Unknown
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Format: eBook (Kindle)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[clairelm]

This was an interesting book, looking at the effect of infections on civilisation and our genetic background. Discussing a multitude of plagues, both epidemic and pandemic, throughout history the author gave some novel (at least to me) views on the effect of them including the effect on the Black Death on technological advances and that of diseases on religious belief through the ages. The author also looked at the effect of disease on armies, invasions and war.

I have to admit, I disagreed with some of the things in the book. Some of the author's views seemed a little too high and mighty for my taste. Also, the comments on Ebola in particular, although written in 2009 so before the current outbreak, were laughable as he seemed to feel there would be little chance of Ebolavirus becoming a serious threat.

Still a good read and definitely recommended if you are interested in the subject, although an open mind is needed as with so many of these 'pop science' books.

★★★★☆ 4 stars

[inlibrisveritas]

The book Genes, Germs and Civilzation by David Clark is an in depth look at how the diseases and illnesses of our past and present have shaped our lives in most aspects. Overall it was a fairly interesting look into how disease and illness has actually shaped our lives over the course of our history. I originally picked this up because it was free on Amazon for the kindle and knowing it was a high priced book otherwise I took the chance one it. I'm glad I did. There are a lot of things included that I personally didn't know and to see how these small miniscule things caused such huge impacts on human history is really cool, and very eye opening. One of my favorite quotes from this is : "Mother Nature has no maternal instincts." I thought that was pretty genius.

I thought the writing was good and while at times it's pretty text book like, there are moments where that kind of breaks and becomes slightly informal. But it's not terribly distracting. Some parts were fairly repetitive though and made the book seem a lot longer then it actually is and it drags, and other areas the author seem to be almost criticizing someone or something. Other then those instances it was pretty straightforward with interesting instances where disease has actually helped us in the overall outlook despite the devastation it caused at the time. It might take some time to get through though, it wasn't something that I could sit down and read for hours. I had to take breaks and read other things, so it took me weeks to get through the whole thing.

I would recommend this to those who really enjoy non-fiction based around science and history, especially you enjoy reading about microbiology, diseases and things of that nature.