Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health by Judith Walzer Leavitt ISBN: 0-8070-2103-2 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Worthwhile Read
Comment: Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health by Judith Walzer Leavitt could be shorter. Not much shorter, just a bit shorter. The beginning of the book is surprisingly dull and a great deal of information is repeated unnecessarily.
That said, Typhoid Mary is very well-written, even the dull bits. The research is well-documented and complete. And the subject matter is more than a little engrossing. Who was the woman behind the label "Typhoid Mary"?
Leavitt is making the link between typhoid and AIDS, in particular the problem of finding the balance between protecting individual rights and protecting the community. She spends time on this subject towards the end of the book and has some compassionate and reasonable things to say. The strongest part of the book, however, is in the history and in Leavitt's appreciation of Mary Mallon as an individual. The most interesting parts of the book (and where the writing picks up considerably) are the chapters on the public perception of Typhoid Mary throughout the 20th century.
Recommendation: Buy it if it's a subject that already interests you. Otherwise, check it out of the library.
Rating: 4
Summary: Painstaking research into a historical personality
Comment: Leavitt's book, Typhoid Mary, attempts to reconstruct the life and times of Mary Mallon, the first identified typhoid carrier in the United States. Mary Mallon was an Irish immigrant, and worked as a cook among the elite families of New York city. She is also the centerpiece of one of the scientific advances of the twentieth century: the understanding that some illnesses are caused by germs, rather than vague miasmas, and that apparently healthy individuals can spread these germs to others. An understanding of this scientific truth, however, raises an even more puzzling question: how can the public address these individuals who, through no bad acts on their part, are able to risk the public's health? Leavitt analyzes Mary's story with the use of seven different perspectives: that of medicine, public policy, the law, social expectations, newspaper accounts, her own, and the story's modern retelling. These seven accounts combine to provide the reader a full account of the medical and social conditions of the day, and how they combined to account for Mary's lifelong isolation. The research on this book is well-done and the writing interesting. My biggest complaint was that some of the material is repetitive, as the different perspectives do overlap at times.
Rating: 3
Summary: Interesting Social History
Comment: Less a history of Mary Mallon herself than of how the U.S. reacted to typhoid, Typhoid Mary makes for an interesting look into turn-of-the-century understandings of epidemiology and public health.
Leavitt does a nice job of telling the story of how Mary was identified as a vector for typhoid and of how she was treated by the state of New York. However, the book is laced with lots of analysis and attempts to draw connections between the way typhoid was treated/viewed in the late 1800s and early 1900s and with how AIDS has been treated/viewed in the late 1900s. These connections are valid and interesting, but the manner in which they are scattered throughout the text become a bit distracting. This said, Typhoid Mary remains enlightening and interesting reading.
 |
Title: Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical by Anthony Bourdain ISBN: 1582341338 Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (NY) Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: The Fever Trail: In Search of the Cure for Malaria by Mark Honigsbaum ISBN: 031242180X Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: Rats, Lice, and History by Hans Zinsser ISBN: 0316988960 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 30 September, 1984 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 by Charles Rosenberg ISBN: 0226726770 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1987 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918 by Alfred W. Crosby ISBN: 0521541751 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
