Book description
First, a horse in Brisbane falls ill: fever, swelling, bloody
froth. Then thirteen others perish. The foreman at the stables
becomes ill and the trainer dies. What is going on?
It takes months to establish that the cause is a virus which has
travelled from a tree-dwelling bat to horse, and from horse to man.
The bats had lived undisturbed for centuries in Queensland's
eucalyptus forests. Now the forests are being cut down and the
colonies of bats are roosting elsewhere...
Spillover tells the story of such diseases. As globalization
spreads and as we destroy the ancient ecosystems, we encounter strange
and dangerous infections that originate in animals but that can be
transmitted to humans. Diseases that were contained are being set free
and the results are potentially catastrophic.
In a journey that takes him from southern China to the Congo, from
Cameroon to Kinshasa, David Quammen tracks these infections to their
source and asks what we can do to prevent some new pandemic spreading
across the face of the earth.
A frightening and fascinating masterpiece of science reporting that
reads like a detective story. -- Walter Isaacson Quammen has a wide
range of knowledge, an agile pen, and a generous heart. -- James Gorman
New York Times Book Review David Quammen is a recipient of the Academy
Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and
the author of five acclaimed natural history titles. His most recent
book,
The Song of the Dodo
, won the BP Natural World Book Prize in 1996. He lives in Montana.
