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icanteven's review
informative
medium-paced
4.0
I love the topic and structure - starts with historical developments of quarantine, then continues on to current and future developments. One section regarding isolation of trade goods, like fruit, kinda dragged - just not the most exciting subtopic. Of course, Covid 19 and opportunistic marketing gets attention, and it's a rather dower note. We do get some hope at the end, though!
jess_mango's review
4.0
Review coming soon...
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
purplepierogi's review
3.0
I thought this book was pretty good, it’s a really comprehensive accounting of the historical use (and abuse) of quarantine as a public health measure, and of course rumination on present and near future use of quarantine. The beginning was very informative— but the section on disinfecting mail was so long! — and I thought the section on quarantine hardening colonial claims / arbitrary borders was v good.
The section on produce pests section did pretty much nothing for me, and the nuclear waste bits felt only tangentially related. but overall cool read; the authors had been visiting lazarettos and interviewing historians and public health officials and engineers for a couple of years before the COVID-19 pandemic, but they were able to incorporate their pretty much already written book w some current realities we’ve seen play out. Lost stars for the boring bug bits!
The section on produce pests section did pretty much nothing for me, and the nuclear waste bits felt only tangentially related. but overall cool read; the authors had been visiting lazarettos and interviewing historians and public health officials and engineers for a couple of years before the COVID-19 pandemic, but they were able to incorporate their pretty much already written book w some current realities we’ve seen play out. Lost stars for the boring bug bits!
tuesday_evening's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
chadwika's review
2.0
Perhaps I went into this book with the incorrect mindset, because I thought it was a nonfiction history book, but I was very disappointed. Any history book that quotes historians instead of historical sources and doesn't even bother to explain how the historians they cite came to those conclusions should be viewed with cynicism in my opinion. It takes a truly talented historian to discuss the history of something across so much time and geographical distance while remaining detailed and accurate, and these authors were not up to the task. Even if the very first section they present out of date and inaccurate information on the black plague. The story of Mongols catapulting plague ridden bodies over the walls during the siege of Caffa was either too salacious to leave out or the authors simply didn't bother to engage with the newest academic literature when writing. Either way: disappointing.
ericfheiman's review
3.0
Intriguing research premise, but too on the nose for these times and not philosophical or probing enough to make me stick with it. I’ll pick it back up when we’re a bit more past these plague years.
eliseweber's review
4.0
this was another random selection from the list of time books. i enjoy these random ones because it gives me an opportunity to read books that i wouldn’t usually read or read genres that i wouldn’t try otherwise. this was a nonfiction book that discussed the different forms of quarantine and the way it’s been utilized through history. it gave me a kind of cool perspective not only on quarantine or science, but the covid-19 pandemic in general.
boggremlin's review
3.0
I picked this up after hearing about it on an episode of the podcast Gastropod (of which Twilley is a co-host). as a result I thought the book would spend more time on agricultural quarantine than it did. Overall an interesting read, but the sheer amount of information that compares historic plague and infectious disease outbreaks with how the world has responded to COVID-19 felt a little close for me, personally. It's an interesting subject; I thought the book was fine, but it didn't have a central theme to pull it all together (to be fair: in the book's defense, it's hard to have a central narrative when you're looking both backwards in time and into the future).