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(More customer reviews)One of the most difficult and important talents for a scientist is to communicate difficult material in an understandable way. Dr. Orent has an astounding ability to communicate complex material coherently enough for a nonspecialist to understand. She has made sense of an enormous amount of plague history: why did specific plague eruptions throughout history emerge? Why did some eruptions self destruct while others kept going for many years? Why did some plague eruptions seem to require transmission through rats and rat fleas while others transmitted directly from human to human? Why do researchers in some countries consider plague virtually always fatal while researchers in some other countries consider it primarily a disease of rodents with little potential for human infection?
Dr. Orent traveled as far as Russia to meet with leading plague researchers (and biological terrorists) in the process of preparing this book.
I had the pleasure of discussing plague with Dr. Orent a couple of years ago when she was in Maryland doing research for the work. At the time I was stuck in the mind set from my days in college, when we learned that plague died down in Europe when the brown rats (essentially imune to plague) forced out the black rats (vulnerable to plague). While Dr. Orent told me that some forms of plague transmitted directly from human to human, the horror of the situation did not come through until I read her very convincing book.
I strongly recommend this book, one of the finest nonfiction books I have read in many years. As an experienced author, it takes a lot for an author to impress me with writing ability. Based on this book, Dr. Orent is one of the finest pure writers I have encountered in many years -- as well as an excellent scientist.
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