The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of eleven books, including Where Good Ideas Come From, Wonderland, and Extra Life. He's the host and co-creator of the Emmy-winning PBS/BBC series How We Got To Now, and the host of the podcast American Innovations. He lives in Brooklyn and Marin County, California with his wife and three sons.

"Fascinating." —The New York Times Book Review

"Thrilling." —GQ

"Vivid." —The New Yorker

"Thought-provoking." —Entertainment Weekly

"By turns a medical thriller, detective story, and paean to city life, Johnson's account of the outbreak and its modern implications is a true page-turner." —The Washington Post

"Marvelous... as was Dava Sobel's Longitude. Yet The Ghost Map is a far more ambitious and compelling work... Mr. Johnson is never less than lively and beguiling." —The Wall Street Journal

"Steven Johnson tells the tale with verve, spicing his narrative with scenes of Dickensian squalor and the vibrant street life surrounding that squalor. But in Johnson's hands, The Ghost Map morphs into something more than mere history." —The San Diego Union-Tribune

"Johnson adds a new and welcome element—old-fashioned storytelling flair... to his fractal, multifaceted method of unraveling the scientific mysteries of everyday life." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Steven Johnson gives us history at its best: colorful, connected and compelling. At the core is a medical mystery, or what today would be called an epidemiological detective story... A masterpiece of historical writing." —The Seattle Times

"This is more than a great detective story. It's the triumph of reason and evidence over superstition and theory, and Johnson tells it in loving detail." —Chicago Tribune