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Rating: 
Summary: Cupidity, Arrogance, and Altruism
Review: "Plague," is a briskly paced history for the non-specialist that opens with the graphic and frightening journey of a large rat through a Hong Kong market place that is a sure attention grabber. Author Edward Marriott also takes us to the back alleys and shantytowns of Africa, India, and the US as he explains the course of bubonic-plague, and the standard reactions of doctors and politicians wherever there's an outbreak.On a planet as small, with a population as fragile, it's a constant surprise that earth-dwellers have such difficulty doing the "right thing." "Plague" is a another chronicle of cupidity, and arrogance in medical research, thankfully blessed by the altruism of field epidemiologists who literally risked their lives to investigate a cause and cure for the "black death." The primary story is quite the thriller with two epidemiologists racing for an outcome - Shibasaburo Kitasato and his team coddled by Hong Kong's British governor, and Frenchman Alexandre Yersin, working alone and hampered by the governor. Although the results are history, "Plague," is enough of a thriller that I won't spoil the pleasure for readers who are not medical historians. "Plague," had me glued to the page, and I recommend it to anyone who has a layman's interest in medical history.
Rating:
Summary: Lessons of History
Review: Ask most educated people about the plague and the response you will get probably revolves around the "Black Death" of the Middle Ages that wiped out a good portion of the population of Europe. Most books about the plague tend to focus on this period. But Marriott's book reminds us that the plague is not gone, still popping up its ugly head from time to time. In a world chilled by thoughts of bio-terrorism and SARS, most people tend to avoid books like this but I find them interesting. Humans will always be susceptible to disease but we will always fight back. In this book, Marriott tells the parallel stories of an outbreak of plague in southeast Asia in 1894 where two scientists--Alexandre Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato--tried to determine the process of this disease and an outbreak of plague in India in 1994 where he shows how panic still dominates our reactions to epidemics in our modern world. Along the way, he reminds Americans that plague also has its claws in the United States though our medical system tends to keep things at bay. Ultimately, Marriott gives us a good look into the foundations of modern medicine and how diseases came to be combated despite the combat, both intellectual and physical, between doctors of different nations and sensibilities. He also reminds us in a rather subtle way of how primitive our response to deadly sickness remains despite our drugs and treatments--something that we need to be reminded of in a world where we could be called to respond to an epidemic on many fronts. His prose may not be as gripping as some writers in this field (Richard Preston comes to mind) but he gets the job done in a very readable way.
Rating:
Summary: rivalry between two scientists
Review: Edward Marriott's book is an interesting, well-written, anecdoctal account of two rival scientists studying the plague that struck Hong Kong in 1894. In the light of present day news stories of mad-cow disease, SARS, and other exotic ailments that possibly could pose a pandemic threat, Marriott's book is especially relevant. Marriott brings the rat-infested harbor area and the exceedingly crowded, poor districts of the city to vivid life. The stark pictures of those soon-emptied areas, so quickly deserted by panicked residents, are chilling to view. Recommended to all readers, and especially to those involved in public health issues.
Rating:
Summary: rivalry between two scientists
Review: Edward Marriott's book is an interesting, well-written, anecdoctal account of two rival scientists studying the plague that struck Hong Kong in 1894. In the light of present day news stories of mad-cow disease, SARS, and other exotic ailments that possibly could pose a pandemic threat, Marriott's book is especially relevant. Marriott brings the rat-infested harbor area and the exceedingly crowded, poor districts of the city to vivid life. The stark pictures of those soon-emptied areas, so quickly deserted by panicked residents, are chilling to view. Recommended to all readers, and especially to those involved in public health issues.
Rating: 
Summary: Trying too hard to be original
Review: PLAGUE starts out slow but gathers steam in the last hundred pages. This progression may have been inevitable. True stories of killer diseases have emerged as a genre in recent years since the publishing of Richard Preston's THE HOT ZONE, and the plague in particular is probably the most written-about disease in human history. So Marriott needed to try something new or be hopelessly derivative. The problem with this book is that Marriott perhaps attempts tries in too many ways before the story steadies itself and becomes compelling. The basic set up of the book is, HOT ZONE-like, an icky outline of what the disease can do, then the story of the scientific exploration of the disease. (Even more than THE HOT ZONE, PLAGUE's tale of scientific rivalry in the race to understand the disease reminded me of Gina Kolata's FLU). This story, the rivalry between French doctor Alexander Yersin and his Japanese competitor, Kitasato Shibasaburo, is essentially what the book is about. But before the Yersin-Kitasato race becomes interesting, Marriott inserts several side stories, some of which distract from the momentum of the main story. Most distracting is an ongoing story about a 1994 plague outbreak in India. That's only the lengthiest of several stories of "future" plague outbreaks. I think the point is that even though the bacteria that causes plague was identified a hundred years ago, even though the disease is now treatable, even though its method of transmission is now understood, it is still a problem for human societies. But the point could have been made better in a more linear story. As it is, the side stories seem to be inserted in slow moments of the main story. Perhaps Marriott felt that the main story did not provide enough material for a full, suspenseful book. Nevertheless, the suspense level of PLAGUE picks up and the Yersin-Kitasato story reaches a finite end. Not so the larger story of the plague, as indicated by the somewhat open-ended Indian outbreak story, which mutates into a more personal story about a family affected by the social impact of what turns out to be a small outbreak. Unfortunately, this is how the book ends. I think I understand why, but it just doesn't work.
Rating: 
Summary: It's out there!
Review: Plague, commonly known as The Black Death, has occurred in three major pandemics, and this is a fine history of the latest, which started in China in the late 19th century and spread worldwide from Hong Kong. Investigations into the nature of the disease in 1894 culminated in a contest between two early microbiologists, Kitasato and Yersin, a tale with obvious modern parallels. This historical footnote is one of the major themes of the book, but the author then follows the spread of Plague from Hong Kong to India and on to America. It has become entrenched in various wild animals worldwide. This is a great medical history, and one of the best of the rash of books on "killer diseases" that currently flood the market.
Rating:
Summary: It's out there!
Review: This is really 3 1/2 stars. The subject was engrossing, the story of the rivalry between the heroic Frenchman and the brilliant but cheating Japanese researchers interesting, the history of the plague informative. BUT it was very condensed; the chapters were quite short and needed fleshing out. I did like the organization - alternating between a breakout of the plague in modern India and the one that struck turn of the century Hong Kong. Particularly disturbing were the tales of modern plague and the rather easy conditions needed to engender such a horror. The author did not spend enough time with the main story. He concentrated on colonial conditions, the prejudice of the imperialists, the still-existing problem of health in the 3rd world. But the heart of the story was the rivalry between the two researchers and the plague itself. This could have been a brilliant book - instead it was only above average. Pictures and a bibliography are included.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening, entertaining, abbreviated
Review: This is really 3 1/2 stars. The subject was engrossing, the story of the rivalry between the heroic Frenchman and the brilliant but cheating Japanese researchers interesting, the history of the plague informative. BUT it was very condensed; the chapters were quite short and needed fleshing out. I did like the organization - alternating between a breakout of the plague in modern India and the one that struck turn of the century Hong Kong. Particularly disturbing were the tales of modern plague and the rather easy conditions needed to engender such a horror. The author did not spend enough time with the main story. He concentrated on colonial conditions, the prejudice of the imperialists, the still-existing problem of health in the 3rd world. But the heart of the story was the rivalry between the two researchers and the plague itself. This could have been a brilliant book - instead it was only above average. Pictures and a bibliography are included.
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