PANDEMIC Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond

Nine and a half hours of the history and biology of fatal disease transmission may not be everyone's listening pleasure, but you do come away feeling this is something you, and everybody else, should hear. Author Sonia Shah is not a practiced narrator, but her perspective as a scientist and mother gives her narration authority and immediacy. And she definitely knows what she's talking about. Historically, governments have handled disease outbreaks badly, and have been slow to warn citizens of the full danger they face. Ignorance and denial inevitably heightened the toll. Shah tells grim stories that are always most terrifying in terms of what was to come. Yet her overall account is implicitly reaffirming in its "history" of all the outbreaks that did not occur, thanks to modern science, responsible government, and the vigilance of an informed public. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2016]