![]() ![]() But this is such a consummate piece of science writing that you're likely to imbibe some extremely complex concepts without realising it. He promises to tell us the "complicated story", not the dramatic one. ![]() ![]() ![]() He's much more interested in demystifying these outbreaks, finding out what we know about them and how this might help us to anticipate future emergent diseases and limit their impact. Quammen doesn't sensationalise his material (you could argue he doesn't need to – it's quite dreadful enough). The story is grim enough without the usually exaggerated descriptions of Ebola: sufferers crying blood and melting from the inside out. An international team of detectives works on the cases, and Quammen follows them as they uncover the traces which will lead them to the killers.Īfter an opening chapter about a horrific virus which lays low horses and humans, the Ebola virus emerges through a dark tale, with piles of dead gorillas in the forest, consumption of rotting bushmeat, sorcery and Rosicrucianism. Each chapter follows the quest to track down a new villain. They are viruses, bacteria and single-celled organisms which infect other animals, but every now and then make the jump – spill over – to our own species. David Quammen has woven a story of incredible complexity a detective story with a difference, with a host of murderers – all of them real. ![]()
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