Hunting the 1918 Flu: One Scientist's Search for a Killer Virus
by Duncan, Kirsty
- Used
- Very Good
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Very Good/very good
- ISBN 10
- 0802087485
- ISBN 13
- 9780802087485
- Seller
-
Carrollton, Georgia, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Hardcover. Very good/very good. Hardcover. 9 1/4" X 6 1/4". xvi, 297pp. Very mild shelf wear to covers, corners, and edges of unclipped dust jacket. Barcode stick to rear of dust jacket. Black cloth over boards with spine lettered in silver. Pages are clean and unmarked. Binding is tight and sound.
ABOUT THIS BOOK:
In 1918, medical science was at a loss to explain the Spanish flu epidemic, which swept the world in three great waves and killed an estimated 20 to 40 million people in just one year, more than the number that died during the four years of World War I. Today, while the Spanish flu has faded in the public's memory, most virologists are convinced that sooner or later a similarly deadly flu virus will return with a vengeance.
Responding to this sustained interest in the Spanish flu, Kirsty Duncan in Hunting the 1918 Flu presents a detailed account of her experiences as she organized a multi-national, multi-discipline scientific expedition to exhume the bodies of a group of Norwegian miners, buried in Svalbard, all of whom died from the Spanish flu virus. Duncan weaves a twofold narrative: first, the story of a large-scale medical project with the objective of uncovering genetic material from the Spanish flu and second, a first-hand account of the turbulent politics that emerged as the group moved towards a goal where the egos were as strong as the stakes were high. Duncan, herself not an epidemiologist but a physical geographer, is very frank about her bruising emotional, financial, and professional experience on the 'dark side of science.' Readers witness how the research team engages in 'entropic' behaviour, despite its presumed dedication to science and the search for the virus, as the compelling story unfolds through the beginning progress and harrowing conclusion of her project (1992-2001).
In her account of pursuing the deadly killer, Kirsty Duncan raises questions not only regarding public health, epidemiology, ethics of science, and the rights of subjects but also about age, gender, and privilege in science. While her search for the virus has shown promising preliminary results, it has also shown the dangers of science itself being subsumed in the rush for personal acclaim.(Publisher).
ABOUT THIS BOOK:
In 1918, medical science was at a loss to explain the Spanish flu epidemic, which swept the world in three great waves and killed an estimated 20 to 40 million people in just one year, more than the number that died during the four years of World War I. Today, while the Spanish flu has faded in the public's memory, most virologists are convinced that sooner or later a similarly deadly flu virus will return with a vengeance.
Responding to this sustained interest in the Spanish flu, Kirsty Duncan in Hunting the 1918 Flu presents a detailed account of her experiences as she organized a multi-national, multi-discipline scientific expedition to exhume the bodies of a group of Norwegian miners, buried in Svalbard, all of whom died from the Spanish flu virus. Duncan weaves a twofold narrative: first, the story of a large-scale medical project with the objective of uncovering genetic material from the Spanish flu and second, a first-hand account of the turbulent politics that emerged as the group moved towards a goal where the egos were as strong as the stakes were high. Duncan, herself not an epidemiologist but a physical geographer, is very frank about her bruising emotional, financial, and professional experience on the 'dark side of science.' Readers witness how the research team engages in 'entropic' behaviour, despite its presumed dedication to science and the search for the virus, as the compelling story unfolds through the beginning progress and harrowing conclusion of her project (1992-2001).
In her account of pursuing the deadly killer, Kirsty Duncan raises questions not only regarding public health, epidemiology, ethics of science, and the rights of subjects but also about age, gender, and privilege in science. While her search for the virus has shown promising preliminary results, it has also shown the dangers of science itself being subsumed in the rush for personal acclaim.(Publisher).
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Details
- Bookseller
- Underground Books, ABAA (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 6474
- Title
- Hunting the 1918 Flu: One Scientist's Search for a Killer Virus
- Author
- Duncan, Kirsty
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- very good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- ISBN 10
- 0802087485
- ISBN 13
- 9780802087485
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Place of Publication
- Toronto
- Date Published
- 2003
Terms of Sale
Underground Books, ABAA
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Underground Books, ABAA
Biblio member since 2009
Carrollton, Georgia
About Underground Books, ABAA
Underground Books is an online rare and antiquarian bookshop as well as a brick and mortar general bookstore of the same name in downtown Carrollton, Georgia. Sister store Hills & Hamlets Bookshop is located in the nearby planned eco-community of Serenbe.
Co-owners Josh Niesse and Megan Bell met in 2011, just 10 days or so after Josh opened the doors of Underground Books, literally underground, several steps below street level in a 100-year-old basement in our historic downtown. Megan, an English student at the University of West Georgia, walked in, fell down the rabbit hole, and never left! Reader, we married in May of 2014, under the book arch that now resides at the bookshop. We are both proud alumni of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS), and Megan additionally of Rare Book School at the University of Virginia and of the ABAA Women's Initiative Mentorship Program.
We have two open bookshops that carry new, used, bargain, rare, and antiquarian books, as well as our online office, impossible without our incredible team of booksellers, including two fellow CABS graduates, Miranda McMillan and Suzanne Carnes.
Like many booksellers with open brick-and-mortar stores, we are passionate generalists, but our specialties are in decorative publisher's cloth bindings; fairy tales, folklore, and mythology; popular science and natural history; the occult; and fine press books.
Co-owners Josh Niesse and Megan Bell met in 2011, just 10 days or so after Josh opened the doors of Underground Books, literally underground, several steps below street level in a 100-year-old basement in our historic downtown. Megan, an English student at the University of West Georgia, walked in, fell down the rabbit hole, and never left! Reader, we married in May of 2014, under the book arch that now resides at the bookshop. We are both proud alumni of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS), and Megan additionally of Rare Book School at the University of Virginia and of the ABAA Women's Initiative Mentorship Program.
We have two open bookshops that carry new, used, bargain, rare, and antiquarian books, as well as our online office, impossible without our incredible team of booksellers, including two fellow CABS graduates, Miranda McMillan and Suzanne Carnes.
Like many booksellers with open brick-and-mortar stores, we are passionate generalists, but our specialties are in decorative publisher's cloth bindings; fairy tales, folklore, and mythology; popular science and natural history; the occult; and fine press books.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Shelf Wear
- Shelf wear (shelfwear) describes damage caused over time to a book by placing and removing a book from a shelf. This damage is...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...