The Living Unknown Soldier: A Story of Grief and the Great War

The Living Unknown Soldier: A Story of Grief and the Great War
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Tragic Story Of One Survivor Of The Great War: And There Were Many!

Beautiful Stranger

A Somber, Unsettling Tale

Lost and Disillusioned

The Living Unknown Soldier: A Story of Grief and the Great War
Jean-Yves Le Naour
Manufacturer: Owl Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0805079378
Release Date: 2005-08-11

Book Description

In February 1918, a derelict soldier was discovered wandering the railway station in Lyon, France. With no memory of his name or past, no identifying possessions or marks, the soldiergiven the name Anthelme Manginwas sent to an asylum for the insane. When the authorities advertised his image in an attempt to locate his family, hundreds of relatives sought to claim him as the father, son, husband, or brother who never returned from the front. Marshaling a wealth of materialfrom letters and newspaper articles to accounts of battlefield deaths, hospital reports, and police filesFrench historian Jean-Yves Le Naour re-creates the long-forgotten story of the soldier who came to stand for a lost generation. In the process, he portrays not just the fate of one individual but of an entire nations great and inconsolable grief following a war that consumed the lives of millions.

Customer Reviews:

Tragic Story Of One Survivor Of The Great War: And There Were Many!.......2007-06-23

This review refers to the hardcover edition of the book. I bought this book a few years ago with the intention of reading it right away, however, it was only recently [the past week] that I began to read this very sad book dealing with the life of a French soldier from WWI. Although there have not been many reviews of this book, the few reviews here are great to read. The story deals with the life of an amnesiac WWI French soldier named Anthelme Mangin. It was a name given to him because the Doctors were never able to figure out his real identity: Therefore, they had to call him by a name, and Anthelme Mangin is the name he became known by.

Further, his identity has never been discovered. And like so many of his generation: both the soldier's and the French families whose own sons, husbands and fathers never came home; Mangin came to symbolize a French nation just as much traumatized by this great slaughter on the battlefield as the soldiers who returned. Many of whom would never recover from this war. With so many "unknown" soldiers' graves dotting the French landscape, Anthelme Mangin came to symbolize a nation grieved with trauma as much as Mangin himself. There were many who claimed him as their own family member; many did so out of their own grief of having their sons, husbands and lovers themselves missing in action. Moreover, many of these families who claimed him as their own son or husband were tragically unaware, or refused to accept that their loved ones were themselves in the graves of those whom the French could not identify, and these soldiers therefore became just another statistic of the official 'Unknown' enscribed across numerous grave markers in Belgium or France. Or, like many others, they are still laying buried beneath the French and Belgian soil--even to this day, without a marker.

For me, the story was very poignant and somber. With recent visits these last few months at a VA hospital for medical treatment, I remember my own stay in a U.S. Military hospital at Landstuhl Military Hospital in the former West Germany. And while I had the best of care for 6 weeks, at least I was afforded the opportunity of counselors and nurses who genuinely cared for me, not to mention the military Doctors who saved my life. Looking about the V.A. hospital today, I could not help remembering the past, and feeling such strong sympathy for Mangin and others like him, who unlike myself and others, were at least afforded great medical care and follow-up treatment, both during the military and afterwards.

It has been nearly thirty years since I left the military hospital where I recuperated and regained my health. Unfortunately for Mangin, his life would consist of Asylums and an identity that alluded both him and the rest of the French citizenry. In 1942 Mangin died. And in yet another cruel twist, he would be buried in a common grave--forgotten, for there was another war raging. The 'War to End All Wars' did not end all war, and once again another generation of young men and women would themselves become 'Unknown' and missing, albeit not to such a large degree at Mangin and others of his generation. The book is highly recommended. It is only 233 pages long: This includes the extensive endnotes in the book for those wishing to delve deeper into this sad chapter in human history. French historian Jean-Yves Le Naour does a meticulous job in his narrative in trying to recreate the tragic life of this 'Living Unknown Soldier. Highly recommmended.

Beautiful Stranger.......2007-01-25

Anthelme mangin wasn't even his real name, but the doctors had to call him something in order to fit him into their bureaucracy. In Jean-Yves Le Naour's research he found that many of the Army records he needed to lay his hands on have mysteriously been "disappeared," but from press accounts and asylum he was able to piece together most of the story, though some details remain alarmingly vague. It didn't help him that the journalist who did the most to publicize M. Mangin's plight was himself a fabulist and made up picturesque details out of whole cloth if they helped him sell newspapers. (So there's a funny passage in Le Naour's book in which he enumerates how many fictions the journalist used in one piece, claiming that in the entire news release there was only one verifiable fact.)

I got puzzled too, because lost in the mist of history is the origin on Mangin's madness. Amnesia is now more properly understood as a secondary system of something else, and trauma studies have shown that war alone is able to induce amnesia (rather than postulating that the amnesiac is a "weak" person to begin with, or even more xenophobically, a foreigner). But so is the asylum and so is prison, so that Mangin's indisputably "nutty" symptoms might have cropped up later on in life when he began receiving wholescale public attention. (Jean Anouilh wrote a play about him, TRAVELER WITHOUT LUGGAGE, which premiered in 1937. Of copurse Le Nauor was too "insane" to attend.)

Did you know that approximately 250,000 Frenchmen just disappeared during the First World War? Presumably most of them were killed in battle, buried in mass graves, but at least a dozen wound up with amnesia and remained unclaimed by their families. In Mangin's case the publicity brought him numerous surrogate families, and when he eventually died (during the Second World War) many lawsuits surrounding his identity clogged French courtrooms, as bereft wives and children and parents thought they recognized his mug from news photos and sued for a piece of his cul. An ironic way for the story to end, but it says something about our need to belong, and our need to make things tiday and recognizable. He was about five foot four, so asylum officials could dismiss the claims of families with missing six foot tall guys in them. His face was round, he had freckles, they could sort of figure out he had a high school education. Why, he even spoke some English! Maybe he was English, how would they know? He was found with a group of other French prisoners, but the numbers of his regiment, sewn to his greatcoat, had been ripped off by a bullet.

As an American boy growing up in rural France, I would pass by a secluded glade on my way to my "Lycee" every day, and older boys whispered that deep in the forest was the grave of the famous living unknown soldier. It was cemented over, looked something like a sunken birdbath. Like the grave of Jim Morrison at Pere Lachaise, it was marked up with a savage and jubilant graffiti. I remember the famous tag from John Lennon: "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together/ See how we run like pigs from a gun . . ." Apropos for a man from whom war had blasted away an identity.

A Somber, Unsettling Tale.......2005-05-19

Jean-Yves Le Naour has magnificently written an unsettling tale of the Living Unknown Soldier of post-WWI France, Anthelme Mangin. Penny Allen has masterfully translated the story.
Le Naour brings to life the past of Anthelme Mangin, an amnesiac veteran of WW One who returned to France in a state of complete dementia. Mangin had been a prisoner in Germany who was repratriated with other invalids in early 1918.
A great sadness permeates the book. Mangin's poor soul never recovered its memory, although he was definitively identified as a soldier who had been taken prisoner in 1914 many, many years later. But his and other amnesiac veterans' return brought an unrelenting torment to the families of more than 300,000 missing Frenchmen. Le Naour in his narrative veers off briefly but fully brings to the pages a sense of the France's state after the war: the guilt of the survivors, the never-ending hope that the disappeared would someday return to their families, the despair that drove some survivors to madness as they waited the rest of their lives for a son, a brother, a husband to come home. Mangin, in his wretched state, symbolized for the French the enduring symbol of grief for a nation drained of much of its young manhood in the war. With no body to bury, families of the missing were torn over clinging on to hope or whether to let go and begin grieving.
The book was excellent. As I write this and think of the story I'm left saddened at how Mangin passed away without ever recovering his memory. You can almost feel the shock and emptiness of the families who misidentified Mangin as one of their missing loved ones, and at the end you read that with Mangin identified the remaining families were left with nothing more than when they had begun their trials to claim him. It is terribly sad to realize that the soldiers Lemay, Mazat, Rondot and others were to be forver resigned to oblivion when they simply disappeared off the face of the earth. Le Naour brings to life one of man's greatest fears, especially as a soldier: to die unknown and to not have news of his death reach his loved ones.
An excellent book. A must read.

Lost and Disillusioned .......2004-11-30

In "The Living Unknown Soldier," Anthelme is a an unidentified French Soldier in post WWI Europe. He is suffering from Amnesia and doesnt remember who is family is or where he is to call home. He searches countless times all over Europe. People who cannot find realitives of their own take him in, thinking if he can't remember who he is maybe he is our lost relitive. Distant family memebers desperately hold on to the shroud of hope that he maybe their family member. In this book Anthelme represents the young generation of France. The childish belief that once something is over it is forgotten. It is trying to show how France wants its people to forget the horrible losses of the war and move on into the next stage of civilization. France felt guilty for the way the family's suffered, for the lost, the innnocent, and the missing. This book represents the way the whole country of France felt, Lost and Disillusioned.

The Living Unknown Soldier: a Story of Grief and the Great War

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The Living Unknown Soldier: a Story of Grief and the Great War
Jean-yves Le Naour
Manufacturer: Metropolitan Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N74RRC

Book Description

See how gender identities are constructed in a rapidly changing cultural milieu with CHALLENGING GENDER NORMS: THE FIVE GENDERS OF INDONESIA! This case study in cultural anthropology explores the Bugis ethnic group, native to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, which recognizes five gender categories rather than the two acknowledged in most societies. This ethnography presents individuals' stories, opinions, and deliberations and proposes a new theory of gender which incorporates appreciation of variously gendered subjectivities.

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Bugis Navigation (Yale Southeast Asia Studies Monograph Series, No 48)
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Manufacturer: Yale Univ Southeast Asia Studies
ProductGroup: Book
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General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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An ethnographic study of the indigenous navigational practices of a group of Bugis seafarers in an island village located in the Flores Sea, midway between South Sulawesi and Sumbawa in Indonesia. Contains twenty-three original illustrations and eight maps. Four oversized maps are included in a separate pocket.

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The Bugis, who number about three million, live for the most part in the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi: they are among the most fascinating peoples of maritime Southeast Asia, and the least known. Their image in legend and modern fiction is of bold navigators, fierce pirates and cruel slave traders, but most are in fact farmers, planters and fishermen. Although they are an Islamic people, they maintain such pre-Islamic relics as transvestite pagan priests and shamans. Their colorful nobility claims descent from the ancient gods, yet owes its power to social consensus. This book is the first to describe the history of the Bugis. It ranges from their origins 40,000 years ago to the present and provides a complete picture of contemporary Bugis society. It is based on the author's extensive field research over the last 30 years, on oral tradition, written epics and chronicles, on travelers' tales from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and on the latest research by Western and Asian scholars in the fields of archaeology, history, linguistics and anthropology. The author reveals the brilliance of Bugis civilization in all its exotic and extraordinary manifestations, and its survival through Dutch colonization, Japanese invasion and the incursions of modernity. This is a work of outstanding scholarship, interest and originality.

Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57 (Native Storiers: A Series of American Narratives)

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Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57 (Native Storiers: A Series of American Narratives)
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Manufacturer: University of Nebraska Press
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Hiroshima Bugi is an ingenious kabuki novel that begins in the ruins of the Atomic Bomb Dome, a new Rashomon Gate. Ronin Browne, the humane peace contender, is the hafu orphan son of Okichi, a Japanese boogie-woogie dancer, and Nightbreaker, an Anishinaabe from the White Earth Reservation who served as an interpreter for General Douglas MacArthur during the first year of the American occupation in Japan.

Ronin draws on samurai and native traditions to confront the moral burdens and passive notions of nuclear peace celebrated at the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. He creates a new calendar that starts with the first use of atomic weapons, Atomu One. Ronin accosts the spirits of the war dead at Yasukuni Jinga. He then marches into the national shrine and shouts to Tojo Hideki and other war criminals to come out and face the spirits of thousands of devoted children who were sacrificed at Hiroshima.

In Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57 acclaimed Anishinaabe writer Gerald Vizenor has created a dynamic meditation on nuclear devastation and our inability to grasp fully its presence or its legacy.

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Bugis Weddings: Rituals of Social Location in Modern Indonesia (Monograph Series, Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies University of Californ)
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Een haan in oorlog: Toloqna Arung Labuaja : een twintigste-eeuws Buginees heldendicht van de hand van I Mallaq Daeng Mabela Arung Manajeng (Verhandelingen ... Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde)
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Le langage des dieux: Cultes et pouvoirs pre-islamiques en pays Bugis, Celebes-sud, Indonesie
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Makassar Sailing, by G.E.P. Collins

Makassar Sailing (Oxford in Asia Paperbacks)
G. E. P. Collins
Manufacturer: Oxford Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
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Book Description

Makassar Sailing is the story of the author's sixteen-month stay in the shipbuilding centre of Indonesia while the boat he had ordered was being built for him. Engaging and informative, it reads as freshly today as when it was first published over fifty years ago.

Customer Reviews:

Makassar Sailing, by G.E.P. Collins.......2001-04-19

Makassar Sailing is Collins' 3rd book, after Twin Flower, an autobiographic tale about Bali's culture and customs and the author's tragic love affair with a young Balinese girl. East Monsoon was his second, in which he told about the building of his own prahu. Makassar Sailing follows on it, dealing with life in the East Indies (Celebes to be exact). It is well-written and lively, full of interesting legends of these people, and complete with maps and photographs. Collins' good humour and his skill as storyteller make this a most recommendable book.

Virus Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the World
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An Amazing Autobiography Filled with Travel Adventure, The History of one Man...and the passion for Virus'

Pete the Great

Mildly interesting biography of 3 decades of experience

Inspirational Triller!! (If thats possible)

Only one mistake.

Virus Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the World
C.J. Peters , and C. J. Peters
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Medicine | Subjects | Books
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Amazon.com

Books such as Richard Preston's The Hot Zone thrust the deadly Ebola virus into the spotlight, but they can't match the first-person perspective of Virus Hunter. Author C. J. Peters is an ex-army colonel who has spent his professional life studying deadly pathogens in the lab and in the wild. He spins a drama- and adrenaline-filled true tale of virus hunters, which is gripping despite its occasional tendency to grow verbose and detour into personal history. Peters offers a look at crippling diseases not only through the eyes of a scientist, but also with the perspective of an insider in the defense establishment, painting a chilling picture of the potential of biological terrorism or outright warfare.

Book Description

The commander of the Army virology unit that battled Ebola in The Hot Zone--and current director of Special Pathogens at the CDC--teams up with the bestselling co-author of Mind Hunter to chronicle his extraordinary thirty-year career fighting deadly viruses.

Currently the head of Special Pathogens at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, C. J. Peters has been on the front lines of our biological war against hot viruses for three decades in South America, the U.S., and Africa. In Virus Hunter, he recounts his lifelong battle against these deadly and invisible agents--and the all-too-often equally dangerous bureaucratic turf wars that have at times escalated the conflict and exacerbated epidemics. From investigating Venezuelan equine encephalitis and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever to containing Ebola in Reston, Virginia, and the deadly hantavirus in the Southwestern U.S., Peters offers a fascinating array of stories about the clash between biology and bureaucracy--and the threat emerging viruses pose to our species.

Written with bestselling co-author Mark Olshaker (Mind Hunter), Virus Hunter is a first person memoir by one of the leading virologists in the Ebola outbreak and a dramatic complement to the mega-bestseller The Hot Zone.

Customer Reviews:

An Amazing Autobiography Filled with Travel Adventure, The History of one Man...and the passion for Virus'.......2007-08-14

I decided to read more about C.J. Peters after I concluded The Hot Zone; finding myself infatuated with this semi-mysterious, tropical-shirt wearing military officer and virus researcher. I was fascinated by this man whose experience and research will and has changed history.

Despite the unmatched experience, education and brillance of C.J. Peters intellect, I found the tone of this book suprisingly "down to earth" Peters is clearly a scientist who an experienced mentor. I sensed he does not see how extraordinary his life is; only that he is aware he is a man who has pursued his passion.

Having recently read both The Hot Zone (marburg), and Preston's Demon in The Freezer (smallpox), I felt I comprehended the power of airborne virus'. What I gained from Virus Hunter was just how much research, time and passion it takes for scientists to learn about these diseases. The intensity of virus research and trying to save human lives makes for an extraordinary read, particulary from the first hand accounts of a true virus hunter (I found his character truly translates to an Indiana Jones of the viral world...pursuing his subject deep into Brazil, the Sudan, and Virginia...)

Peters shares experiences including communication attempts with people around the world, and a need to relate to their lives. He wrote of adventures trying to reach rural locations in South America. He also respectfully recounts the stories of other scientists who succumbed to virus' illness, and the need for the research community to see these deaths as something to hold in mind while seeking a cure. Clearly attaching specific individuals (whether lab researchers, or individual unnamed patients who he watched die) as representatives of why cures MUST be found.

The only lull in this book is about 3/4 though the early chapter about the Four Corners outbreak, the initial story was intiguing (and as you will see ties distinctly into the entire theme of the book), however, it did drag. This was the ONLY slow part of this book. The rest was amazing.

C.J. Peters is the kind of scientist you want to sit, and UNDERSTAND what he sees and learns. He can easily communicate with the average person, and with those at the highest level in military and intellectual leaders. I so wish I had such a passionate scientist who has as much respect for women biologists as men; a scientist whose infectious (pun intended) passion raises everyone sense of curiousity about the subject he teaches. I believe more educators with his passion would produce more passionate scientist, and people willing to take on the overwhelming accomplishment of achieving a biology degree at University.

I would strongly, strongly recommend this book to anyone with any sort of interest in biology, disease, virus, or just anyone who enjoys a terrific adventure.

The sharing of his personal details, and the mating habits of top scientists (they date among their own kind...) added a true depth to his storyline.

I found this book utterly brilliant. The clear message is everyone must be aware of the dangers of viral disease, the serious nature of these illness' which are not classified as bacteria...nor parasitic. Also, the tight budgets created for medical research are truly a danger to the future of our health and those of developing nations.

While I was eating dinner the other night, I was deep in Virus Hunter, reading the descriptive details of what Ebola does to the human body. The thought suddenly struck me...I am eating and reading about subcutaneous hemorrhaging without even a blink...

Now THAT is a good book!

Pete the Great.......2005-10-04

Everyone who is interested in life threatening diseases has come upon the name of C.J. Peters, a leading figure in epidemiology for at least 20 years. So, when i saw the book i bought it just to get an insight of the man himself. What i found was an inspiring manifest of how ''the job gets done'', written by a deeply stuborn, sensitive and respectfull scientist. It is not only a fine book on emerging diseases, it is also a call to medics and politicians alike to enlist to one of the most important, yet underated, scientific fields. Don't miss it.

Mildly interesting biography of 3 decades of experience.......2004-01-25

The maps of South America & Africa were confusing - they put a lot of effort into identifying most of the Countries, but many of them didn't feature in the text, so why give the Geography lesson?

The 20 photographs were of some interest, but there was only one photo of a patient with symptoms, and only one of a virus - I wish there'd been more of those and less of head & shoulders like having a meal and daughter's high-school graduation?

Great disappointment - absolutely no Index!

The penultimate Chapter 11 gives a prediction of Avian Flu originating in Thailand - just what we're getting news about this month (Jan 2004) - but this book was published in 1997. Given the age of the book, its probably not surprising that Chapter 12 is very out of date (as in 'wrong') regarding its description of BSE (Mad Cow Disease) & CJD.

Was it necessary that we be told what the wife of the 'ghost writer' does for a living?

Inspirational Triller!! (If thats possible).......2003-12-11

An excellent book!
This books reads like a thriller as the authors take the reader from one hot zone to another. My appreciation for the bravery and humanity of individuals who do this has increased manifold after reading this.

Only one mistake........2003-08-27

I extremely enjoyed Dr. Peters's book. The only thing that I can argue with him about is in the chapter titled Cochabamba, when he describes Bolivia's geography he makes a mistake. I expect that he got confused, but he said the that the Kollas live in the lowlands of Beni and Santa Cruz and the Cambas in La Paz and the high altitude Altiplano. Well, the truth is that Cambas live in the lowlands of Bolivia and Kollas in the highlands. Otherwise I found the book very good and entertaining. I recommend everybody to read it, but to remember the Camba-Kolla explanation.

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Microbe Hunters
KOPROWSKI
Manufacturer: Medi-Ed Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Microbiology | Basic Science | Medicine | Subjects | Books

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History | Special Topics | Medicine | Subjects | Books

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Microbe Hunters
The Medical Detectives (Plume)

ASIN: 0936741112

Book Description

From the beginning of recorded time until the last fifty years, many diseases whose cause proved to be viral continuously produced suffering in the form of acute and chronic diseases and death. By the onset of the late 1950s and into the early 1960s, a biomedical and economic revolution occurred during which many of these epidemics came under control through the administration of vaccines.

Microbe Huntersthen and now provides an overview of discoveries in animal and plant viruses, bacteria, parasites, and other issues, including prion diseases and mucosal immunity. Moreover, it points to the direction of further research, as exemplified by Kilbourne's comments: "The somewhat untidy packages of RNA that we call influenza viruses may have been hunted down, but they dissemble even as we study them. Today's hunters find that the chase is still on as they pursue the protean proteins of an ephemeral quarry," and by Weller's view: "It is clear that the age of discovery of new viruses of pediatric importance persists as it did half a century ago. What is different is the vast spectrum of molecular tools available to the modern microbe hunter."

Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC
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Great book for scientists and non-scientists alike

This book is GREAT!!!

Gripping true stories of life-threatening events

Couldn't put it down.

Interesting stories, but lost in poor writing

Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC
Joseph M.D. McCormick , Susan Fisher-Hoch , and Leslie Alan Horvitz
Manufacturer: Turner Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Amazon.com

The hemorrhagic viral diseases, such as Ebola, are among the most elusive and gruesome diseases known to man. Joseph B. McCormick and Susan Fisher-Hoch, a husband-and-wife team formerly of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, have spent their lives tracking these pathogens, traversing the globe in heroic efforts to confine them and prevent epidemic. In Level 4, McCormick and Fisher-Hoch recount their most gripping and rewarding experiences, and give insight into the stubborn bravery and driving curiosity that compels them to continually put their own lives at risk for the welfare of humanity.

Customer Reviews:

Great book for scientists and non-scientists alike.......2004-07-09

I just finished reading Virus Hunters and I was very impressed. The book is written in a very scientific fashion, but is not overloaded with science at the same time. I liked how the authors took the time to explain the procedures they used in their work. Especially interesting were the ways the authors had to improvise their work in Africa, it makes you realize just how much western scientists take for granted in our nice clean constantly powered labs.

The book is more than interesting science, it also tells a great story, or several great stories. The book is essentially made up of the two authors' accounts of the different events in their long careers. They take as much time describing the human side of these diseases as they do the scientific side. The suffering inflicted by these diseases on both the patient and community are shown quite well.

This book is GREAT!!!.......2004-07-08

The reader becomes a member of the lab team. All the conflicting emotions, compassion vs. self-preservation and the sense of urgency are expressed throughout the book. As you read, hope and perseverance becomes the strength that binds the individuals together. The knowledge of the mission of a biotech's life is unveiled. The blessings of good health vs. the viral destroyers of mankind is brought from the shadows into the open

Gripping true stories of life-threatening events.......2004-01-18

This is an outstanding book. First-hand true-life recollections of a diverse range of natural disasters across Africa over 3 decades.

The authors tell their stories well, putting you right there in the bush. They retain their sense of humanity throughout so you really feel for their patients and their families as human beings.

1 quibble : only towards of the end of the story do they get married; at the very end of the book they both thank their first spouses for their respective sacrifices - but you never even get to know their spouses first names - what sort of acknowledgement remains anonymous?

2 mysteries : whilst there are plenty of good maps, there are no photos; no pictures of colleagues or patients, and no pictures of the offending Viruses and Bacteria - why not?

Great value for money - I've had to pay much more for far lesser books.

Couldn't put it down........2003-12-15

Joe McCormick and his wife's real-life account of their scary brushes with death and the cold, harsh reality of the heathcare nightmares in the small villages of Africa is a truly wonderful read. Their skills as both physicians and skilled epidemiologists are very impressive, as well as the way they convey their experiances out in the field. Having been a major fan of Richard Preston's "The Hot Zone" when I began reading about the real-life virus hunters, I have much more of an appreciation for the McCormicks' stories, especially as I began to notice errors in Preston's "factual account" of Ebola. Overall, Virus Hunters is a wonderful read that I highly recommend.

Interesting stories, but lost in poor writing.......2003-10-25

When I purchased the book, I was excited by the chance to see these deadly viruses from an insider's perspective. The first hand accounts of the authors' experiences with Ebola, Lassa and other viruses were interesting, but difficult to follow as they skipped back and forth in time and, in some cases, between each of the two author's perspectives. My overall impression was that the book needed a good editor. For those who are interested in the topic, I agree with others' recommendations to read The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett. It's very long, but very readable, and offers a much more coherent reporting of many of the events discussed by McCormick and Fisher-Hoch.

Average customer rating:

Level Four Virus Hunters of the CDC
Joseph B. McCormick , and Susan Fisher-Hoch
Manufacturer: Turner Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HF5JZY

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LEVEL 4 VIRUS HUNTERS OF THE CDC

Manufacturer: Turner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000H1WT7O

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Level 4 Virus Hunters of the CDC
Joseph B. McCormick
Manufacturer: New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc. 1999
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NXHZ0W

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Virus Hunter (Weird Careers in Science)
Rick Emmer
Manufacturer: Chelsea House Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0791087050

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VIRUS HUNTERS
GREER WILLIAMS
Manufacturer: ALFRED A KNOPF
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B0000CKQIR

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Virus Hunters
Greer Williams
Manufacturer: Alfred A Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JC5XVU

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The Virus Hunters
Joseph B. McCormick , and Susan Fisher-Hoch
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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