Review | The Ghost Map

The Book: The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How it Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

Date Published: 2006

Dates Read: January 7-11, 2021

Current Goodreads Rating: 3.88/5

I don't know why I like to torture myself, but apparently I am a masochist. Ghost Map has been on my 'To Read' bookshelf for awhile now because I've always had a morbid fascination with the diseases of the past (like what the heck was the sweating sickness? Why is that not a thing we have to worry about in modern times? Was it just the flu?). For some stupid reason I thought that this year, the year of the global pandemic, would be the perfect time to learn about the cholera outbreak in London during the summer of 1854.

Ok, so what happened? Johnson tells the story of the 1854 cholera outbreak within the Golden Square district in London. Over the span of maybe a month or so hundreds of people suffered from and died of cholera. He breaks down this epidemic by walking in the shoes of three unique characters. Dr. John Snow (no, not that one)who was the first to suspect the water in the nearby water pump as the carrier of the disease as opposed to the more commonly accepted miasma, or poisonous air; Reverend Henry Whitehead who risked his life visiting the suffering patrons in his parish and was invaluable in connecting the infected pump with the infection; and V. cholerae, the bacterium that breeds cholera. Throughout this winding tale we learn how cholera thrives, how dumb society really can be (and, let's be real, still is), and also how absolutely disgusting ye old London really was.

So what did I think? Oh my God I am so glad I was born into an era with indoor plumbing. The fact that London was a gross cesspool of a place in the 19th century is not new to me. I've seen plenty of historical fiction tv shows and movies as well as read books that take place in this time period so I went into this book fully aware that this was going to be disgusting. However, the fact that Johnson was writing about how cholera spread throughout a small neighborhood meant that I read a lot about shit. Literally.

I will admit that it was fascinating in its own way. It's hard not to read this story without a modern lens. It should have been obvious that dumping your latrines into a cesspool that literally drains into the river where you get your drinking water is probably not the best idea, but when the government you rely on refuses to believe in science and spreads actual lies it's easy to see why hundreds died in such a small amount of time. It was also pretty interesting to learn the various factors required for that particularly deadly strain of V. cholerae to breed. I will admit, being an English major, it was sometimes a little difficult to wrap my brain around the scientific terms, but for the most part I think I understood it and, again, I am so fucking grateful I live in the era I live in even though it is a little bit of a political mess right now.

For a book written in 2006, this book is surprisingly relevant to our current events as well. There's the obvious reason in that we are living through a global pandemic and 1854's London had to live through the same uncertainty and fear, but Johnson makes some eerily poignant statements about society that ring true even 15 years after its original publication date.

"Plagues and political unrest have a long history of following the same cycles" Steven Johnson

Johnson does meander a little bit, especially towards the end of the book, but I think the significance his thoughts have on our 2020-2021 society was what kept me engaged and what kept me reading until midnight just so I could finish this book. It may have given me a very mild panic attack and kept me up thinking about how I'm going to die in the next zombie apocalypse, but it was also fascinating to see just how true Johnson's 2006 predictions turned out.

One more thing: while the whole story was fascinating, I think the one part of The Ghost Map that really made me roll my eyes was Johnson's conclusion chapter. One of the defining points of the 1854 cholera epidemic was the fact that London's population had exploded and, suddenly, people were practically living on top of each other. Fast forward and the two million inhabitants of 165 years ago is chump change to the almost ten million who live there today. Johnson makes some good points about how we'll have to continue to improve as a society in order to keep everyone safe and healthy, but sometimes he gets a bit too preachy about the pros of living in densely populated areas. It's better to focus on this book as a study in epidemiology and ignore the parts about how concrete jungles are actually good for the environment. I just don't get that shit.

Long story short:

• I gotta stop reading true horror before bed

• Wash your damn hands and wear your damn masks

• Thank whatever being up above that you don't live in 1854 London

My Rating: 4/5