Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I’ve tried to read this book for most of the year and have really struggled with it.

Some parts were interesting and readable, and others are so science jargon heavy and a real slog to get through.

At times, the book reads in a very clunky fashion and jumps around to different time periods and places.

A lot of research and work has gone into this book, but for me it was just too dry. I found I could only manage a few pages at a time.

The book is very long and unfortunately just not for me. I’ve decided not to continue reading it as there are many other books I could be reading instead.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a copy to review.

Clearly written, informative and most definitely timely, Mark Honigsbaum’s The Pandemic Century takes readers through approximately one hundred years of disease and its consequences. From the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 up to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 onwards (and via pneumonic plague, parrot fever, SARS, Ebola, Zika and several other nightmarish diseases), Honigsbaum introduces the work of the scientists and public health officials tasked with identifying, tracking, containing and treating diseases capable of causing pandemics. He makes it clear that pandemics have always been a characteristic of human society, however long the gap may be between one pandemic and the next, meaning that a sequel of some kind to COVID-19 is inevitable at some point and, consequently, people (both those in power and more regular folks) need to be far better prepared that they were, particularly given the significant social and economic consequences that pandemics always have. It’s an eye-opening account of just how predictably unpredictable disease and humanity’s reaction to it can be.

This was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it. thanks for letting me have an advance copy. I'm new to this author.

A fascinating insight into pandemics, and the role humans play in both creating and curtailing them. Like many others, I guess I was drawn to this book because of the events of the last year, and I found it absolutely riveting. Well written and informative without being too science-heavy for those of us who are not scientifically-minded. I really enjoyed reading this, and appreciated the well-informed and realistic overview,

Thank you to NetGalley, and to the publisher, who provided me with a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Pandemic Century: A History of Global Contagion from the Spanish Flu to Covid-19 by Mark Honigsbaum.
Rating 5/5
The amount of time and work which Mark Honigsbaum has dedicated in writing The Pandemic Century is obvious. It should be the Book of the Century.
I am not medically trained but do have an interest, like many others, in why we have a pandemic at this present time. I was shocked to find there were far more pandemics than I had thought and it’s not a question of if but when the next pandemic will appear or re-emerge.
The advances of science and research gives an insight into where the pandemics originate from and very importantly how. Not only that also how they mutate.
The Pandemic of the Century is very well written and by giving actual cases on how the diseases spread etc you don’t need a medical background to understand it.
I was shocked and astonished about how politics, beliefs and cultures have affected both the treatments and transmissions of the pandemics. Not forgetting the heavy involvement in mankind.
Not a book I am going to forget. Highly recommended.
Many thanks to Mark Honigsbaum, Penguin and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this novel. In return I have given an honest and unbiased review.

The Pandemic Century is a thorough and well-researched history into the diseases which have caused or had the potential to cause epidemics or pandemics since the outbreak of the Spanish Flu in 1918. Honigsbaum leaves no stone unturned in his detailed chapters taking us through each illness in chronological order and it was a fascinating albeit heavy read. It has taken me a while to read in its entirety as the chapters are information dense and so I read this book in fits and starts, taking time between each chapter to process and digest the information presented. Honigsbaum sets out the lessons learned from each and as we move closer to the present day, it is clear how previous outbreaks of other diseases inform the response to a new, present threat, but that more could be done to prevent or lessen the impact of health crises in the future.

Worryingly, it does seem that new strains of disease are becoming more frequent over the last few decades and it is important we do not become complacent when we are able to contain and avert a potentially dangerous outbreak. This book was published before the current pandemic we are all living through and I would be interested in reading an additional chapter looking back on the COVID-19 global response and lessons learned. This book contains a lot of scientific and medical information, however, it is presented and explained in an accessible way, which allowed me to actually learn from and understand its contents.

I usually put reviews of my Netgalley downloads in to a local magazine and copy them to Amazon but I think the readers ae covided out at the moment, so I'll wait until the situation looks nearer to endgame before doing that this time. When I do write a full review, the main point I'd like to make is that I hope a second edition will include an analysis of the coronavirus scene with as much rigour, detail and sheer readibility of this edition. Strikning how the same silly setting aside of sensible precautions is not a new feature of the 2020 pandemic.

Initially, I thought this book was written in response to the current pandemic but this was not the case. The book covers the major pandemics from the Spanish Flu early in the 20th century. It is highly detailed and at times, I struggled to understand the science and zoned out. Still, it's a thought-provoking read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I found this quite a difficult book to read and even more difficult to write about, so this is just a short overview.

My review copy of The Pandemic Century is an e-book, that unfortunately does not have the chapter on COVID-19. I think this is a very interesting account of the epidemiology, the medical advances and the history of the diseases. Honigsbaum details each pandemic focusing on the origins of the diseases and the scientific research involved in finding the causes, cures, and the methods of containing them.

But whilst parts of it written in a narrative style are fascinating, other parts are heavy going and dry with too much (for me) detailed information about the scientific research. Since 1940 scientists have identified 335 new human infectious diseases and nearly two thirds of them are from animals – and of these 70% originate in wildlife, mostly from bats! And then there is the threat from microbes – bacteria and rickettsial (ticks, lice, fleas, mites, chiggers, and mammals) organisms. I had to check the meanings of lots of words and abbreviations when I was reading this book! Alarmingly Honigsbaum states that ‘Reviewing the last hundred years of epidemic outbreaks, the only thing that is certain is that there will be new plagues and new pandemics.‘

My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a review copy.

A timely book looking at the Pandemic's over the last century around the world.

It contains lots of information on how the virus's spread from place to place, how the scientists of the day investigated them and tried to find cures.

Lots to think about, and very informative.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.

Non-fiction isn't something I frequently read, but this seemed highly topical and a way to introduce myself back into reading non-fiction. However, whilst there are some really interesting facts in here, and it covers the main pandemics of the century in detail, it suffers significantly from a few crucial flaws that heavily impacted on my enjoyment of the book as a whole.

Firstly, the vast majority of the book is completely US-centric, with other countries getting barely a mention in passing even when they were the originating point of the pandemic or significant scientific advances were made there. Second, the timelines throughout the chapters are often choppy, moving backwards and forward at will with a lot of technical jargon, making it difficult for a layman to follow. This wouldn't be such an issue if the book were aimed at an academic audience who are already literate in the subject, but I doubt there is anything new here for that audience. Instead it is more of an overview, and aimed squarely at the interested layperson. Finally, the title makes it seem more sociologically based than it really is. In reality, this is a summery of the epidemiology, the medical advances and the history of the diseases. I was expecting far more of an exploration of the politics, the media reporting and the social reactions to the various pandemics than I actually got.

To use a handful of the chapters to illustrate my points; the first chapters cover Spanish Flu and the Pneumonic Plague 'epidemic' in Los Angeles. I use the word epidemic deliberately, because there is a single line in the entire chapter dedicated to stating that the disease made it out of Los Angeles and into Europe. Both chapters are entirely focussed on the USA, and if I hadn't known how badly Spanish Flu crippled Europe, I would be none the wiser for having read this book. The same can be seen in the third chapter dedicated to Parrot Fever, where there is approximately a paragraph about other countries, and whilst Legionaires may have been a pandemic, the entirety of chapter four is focussed on the Philidelphia outbreak, which certainly wasn't. When Honigsbaum finally gets around to acknowledging the rest of the world exists in chapter five, it's a single sentence about Spain. These chapters could have been condensed into one without any issues. I did find that the second half of the book was less US centric, and it worked very much to it's favour. The chapters on AIDS, SARS, Ebola and Zika were therefore some of the strongest in the book, simply because they widened the scope so heavily without losing the close up picture of the disasters in human lives.

The issues with the confusing timelines is an issue present in every chapter to one degree or another, but is most notable in the first two chapters and the Ebola chapter. This is compounded by how many different names and individuals are involved throughout. This was necessary as research was being done on multiple fronts, but because of the structure, you lose sight of individuals until they pop up again pages later with no additional explanation. Considering the complexity of some of the scientific rationale and epidemiology, the skipping timelines just added an additional and completely unnecessary complication to the book. The only points where this really sticks to a straight forward timeline is in chapter four leading into chapter five, where the Philly outbreak was a precursor to the later Legionaire's pandemic. But because of that, chapter four was almost entirely superfluous and Honigsbaum spent a significant amount of time in chapter five referring back to chapter four.

Finally, I don't think Honigsbaum really captured the balance of scientific and sociological that he intended to. Considering the title includes the words 'Panic, Hysteria and Hubris', I don't think my expectations were unreasonable that this would focus more heavily on the sociological ramifications of the pandemics than it actually did. Once again, there was a notable difference between the first and second half of the novel; there was a heavier focus on the political and social aspects from AIDS onward. Prior to that however, the chapters are almost entirely focussed on epidemiology and scientific research. Likewise, it is mainly in the later chapters that Honigsbaum really starts linking the spread of disease and disease management measures to the impact humanity has had on the natural world over the last century. However, even in these later chapters Honingsbaum's primary focus always seems to be the origins and discovery of the epidemic rather than the social ramidications.

That said, there were some fascinating aspects of this book that I had no understanding or knowledge of previously; the zoonotic origins of many of these pandemics for example and just how they managed to break the species barriers to infect humans. Many of these diseases have originated from animals, whether that be bats, birds, pigs or even civets, and Honigsbaum does a good job at exploring these possibilities and the methods of transmission. Likewise, he explores how misconceptions and assumptions in the scientific world can cause long delays in understanding a pandemic, with clear examples throughout. I also personally found the chapter on Parrot Fever fascinating, partly because I had never heard of this particular pandemic but also because of how much I could read behind the lines about the nature of humanity. Faced with a disease that has no human to human transmission, the solution seems simple; stop buying the damn birds.

I also felt that the final three chapters of the book were by far the strongest, and the reason for that has been touched on above. They are significantly less US centric and focus more on public perception, the struggles of the medical world to gain traction or recognition and the impact of political decisions on ground level medicine. For AIDS, this largely came about in the form of bias and the belief that it was a 'gay disease', making it difficult to find funding or support on the scale that is needed for research. For SARS, there was an exploration of how the Chinese government attempted to cover up the emergence of the virus but also how the pandemic put medical lives in danger, through lack of protective equipment and measures. I also found it interesting that Honigsbaum stresses the importance of the 'draconian measures' put in place to control the disease in China, noting that these would meet resistance in America... which has proven to be true.

The impact of public perception on the safety of medical staff is then stressed further in the Ebola chapter, putting them at risk of beatings and death, and how these fears were compounded by the banning of funeral rites and traditions that are incredibly important in communities. Whilst the Zika chapter highlights the heart-breaking impact on young women left with severely brain damaged infants and a complete lack of support once the initial fervour of the pandemic dies down. In addition, all of these chapters did a good job of exploring how mankind has helped to bring these new pandemics on themselves, through quick and affordable transport across the globe, deforestation and the impact that has on animal behaviour, population spikes in poorly sanitised areas and a lack of education of the affected populations.

So... this is a mixed bag. There's some interesting information here, but it is often poorly presented with a disjointed timeline and dense medical jargon. For all that, it is clearly intended to be a layman's offering rather than a highly academic tome and it doesn't quite manage it, instead trying to straddle both lanes and doing it badly. It isn't specialist or technical enough for anyone actively working in those fields, and yet it's confusing structure and scientific jargon make it a difficult entry level book.

Note: I believe later editions have a chapter on coronavirus. My edition did not include this, so I cannot comment.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my free review copy of this title.

A very timely read, if this book doesn't scare you then I want to know your secret! The hundred years covered a quite a revelation, some of which were told in such detail that I had to keep stopping. This is not an easy or comfortable read, but a necessary one if we are to learn from previous mistakes.

Every politician should read this...

At first I thought this book may have been written in response to the current coronavirus pandemic but not so, it was completed before this. Probably because of the situation we are in I found it difficult to read, sometimes I need to get away from the subject. Having said this, the book is fascinating and there is a clear history of various pandemics since 1918. There was so much I didn't realise or didn't understand. The author has recreated these events in great detail and in such a way to make it understandable. He introduces people involved and it makes it all very real and a little disturbing. Although Mark Honigsbaum would not have realised how soon the next pandemic would come, there is caution throughout. It's not all about science but also about human behaviours. Anyone with an interest in medicine, history, maybe technology or detective work may find this book interesting. I would also say despite the title and the subject, this book is quite lively.

An interesting insight into the pandemics that the world has seen over the years.
Some interesting facts and information were presented by the author, worth a read given the current climate we are facing.

There is quite a good discussion of previous pandemics/outbreaks however, with something ongoing such as covid-19, it is quickly out of date.
My husband and I have been scientists for over a decade and we both read this book. I asked my husband’s opinion as he has worked in this field. We agree that this book might be interesting for somebody who knows nothing of the field but we wouldn’t recommend it to our peers.

This book is so relevant and what a time for it to be released. I love history and this book makes me feel more informed about the historical context of pandemics. Well worth a read.

A very interesting read through the medical history of the worlds diseases and how they were "figured out". Some of the language was way beyond me but it was still a good read and learning about diseases I'd never heard of before.

This is difficult to understand at times but a compelling read for anyone who is looking for a clearer back story to epidemics.
Covers Spanish flu ,Aids and Ebola alongside so many other strains of N1 and on into numbers I never knew existed. A scientific read but fascinating nether the less. Snippets of information that made my hair curl.
However has humanity survived so long.

Originally published last year (2019) this couldn't really be more timely or relevant. Clearly incredibly thoroughly researched and vividly brought to life, this look at the last century through the lens of outbreaks of disease is a cautionary but cautiously optimistic read. Perfect for those interested in the current state of the world!