Hey, everyone…
You may have noticed that I’ve been conspicuous by my absence lately. (Narr: for “lately” read “the anthropocene.”) It’s been for a variety of reasons–some health stuff (now OK, thanks for asking); some mental health/self care as we confront the barbarism of the US today; and, more than anything else, seemingly inexhaustible deadline pressure.
Some part of that pressure is finally getting its release–which is the longwinded way of saying that the publication date for my new book So Very Small is upon us. One week from today (4/29) in the US; 5/1 in the UK. (UK info here.)
It’s good, I think. Early readers and reviewers seem to think so. Publishers Weekly and Kirkus both gave it starred notices, which is very comforting, and the blubbers blurbers (I do love this autocorrect flub) wildly exceeded my imagination.* For example:
“So Very Small is very large and fascinating. Thomas Levenson expertly combines storytelling and big questions, most notably: Why not? Why wasn’t the germ theory of disease formulated 200 years earlier? Why, in general, are huge scientific discoveries delayed until they happen? This is exactly the sort of book that a literate citizen, keenly interested in science, reads for enlightenment, perspective, and fun.”—David Quammen, New York Timesbestselling author of Breathless
(Quammen is one of my writing heroes, so when he has something nice to say about my work, I kvell.)
One more:
“By peering through the lens of the modern germ theory, and our protracted battle with disease, Levenson has crafted a vivid, engaging, and timely reminder that we are not as omnipotent nor as clever as we often believe ourselves to be. So Very Small is a deeply researched and thoughtfully compelling exploration of our successes, failures, and precarious future with deadly pathogens.”—Timothy C. Winegard, New York Times bestselling author of The Mosquito and The Horse
I blush! There’s more like this at the Random House link. ;-)
As these two blurbs indicate, So Very Small is ostensibly a history of the discovery that microbes cause infectious disease. The story of the results that added up to germ theory is usually told as a tale of a compressed explosion of discoveries in the second half of the 19th century, but when I started on this project I found myself wondering about what happened to get to that moment. Microbes were first observed in the 1670s, after all–and yet it took almost exactly 200 years to get to the first conclusive demonstration that a particular bacterium lay behind a specific diseases (Robert Koch’s identification of B. anthracis as the pathogen causing anthrax, achieved in January 1877.)
As I tried to piece together why it took so long to get from point a to point b, I realized I was onto a bigger story–one that extended forward from the discovery years to the present day. I argue that the biggest obstacles to making the connection between microbes and disease wasn’t scientific. They were cultural, religious, and social. And those same roadblocks obtain (in different form but recognizably kin to the ideas that went before) still–and help explain why so much of the benefits humankind gained from the insights of germ theory are now at risk.
I have to say that when I started to work on this book (first discussion in 2012; work in earnest starting in ~2021) I had no idea it would be so timely. I wish it weren’t. But with RFK Jr., wreaking havoc on the US public health and biomedical research infrastructure, So Very Small definitely looks forward by looking back.
If y’all are interested, I’ll ask Watergirl if we can set up a post and/or Zoom book talk sometime after the pub date. In the meantime, if you’d like to hear more about it, the excellent Sean Carroll and I talked about it (at length, but what else would you expect from me? ;-) on his Mindscape podcast.
That’s enough. To make up for such naked self-promotion, I promise a good food/cooking post a bit later in the day (maybe tomorrow if the rest of the afternoon eats me alive.)
And with that…this thread is as open as a Hesgeth Signal chat.
*The question of blurbs and blurbing is a vexing one, and some publishers (and lots of authors) want to get away from the practice. Happy to talk about this issue in another post if there’s interest.
Image: Guercino, Philosopher with book, 1635
PS: one more thing. As is their wont, my US publisher, Random House, and my UK folks, Head of Zeus, chose radically different cover designs. Got a preference?
(Images below the fold)
So Very Small (Self Aggrandizement Post)Post + Comments (122)
