Customer Reviews

Diseases and Human Evolution

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This is a often fascinating catalogue of human diseases and how the viruses and bacteria evolved to successfully attack humans. It includes good histories of major epidemics. It also covers how the evolution of human society provided new ooportunities for our microbial foes.

This book collects lots of information on a multitude of diseases. It also offers explanations on the spread and/or development of diseases that may be incorrect in several cases.
I have a feeing that experts on individual; diseases may find some of the treatment superficial. \\but it is still a very useful starting point for anyone.

Barnes spend the entirety of the book resorting to scare tactics and "truthiness" about the actual way diseases came about, how they will continue to kill us and inevitably bring about the extinction of mankind. She blames the advances of civilization for every disease known to man. She cleverly mixes cited facts and her own assumptions to make the reader think that she's presenting unbiased truth. It is clear that Barnes would prefer for humanity to fall back into a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and reduce the human population to a few roving bands scattered around the world.

It is exacty what I need, in fact I got this book for my father, he really enjoyed it.

This is an eminent collection of information about many diseases mainly infectious ones and its written history. Unfortunately the information presented is far off the Human evolution.